Sans
by Tijuana Pirate
Summary: Vin backstory. Darkfic, Vin pov. 'His left hand wipes the side of his mouth and there’s a smear of blood just above his thumb. When he looks up again I see something dark and violent starring out at me from behind his eyes. I smile.'
1. Sans

**Author's notes**: Some acknowledgements. I wrote this story a little while after reading China Miéville's novel Looking for Jake. In that collection, Mr. Miéville wrote about people in mirrors but in a fairly different context. I'm a huge urban fantasy fan and the ideas that are typically found in those kinds of stories run rampant through this one.

There are also two very well known quotations hidden in this story. It's probably unnecessary to cite them but I'll do it anyways. The first is a permutation of 'the medium is the message', a famous quote by Marshall McLuhan. The second is'there is method in his madness'from Hamlet (but you probably all knew that anyways. :p).

As to the title, 'sans' is French for 'without'. It is pronounced the same as 'sang', which is French for 'blood'.

This story… is open to interpretation. Place it wherever you want. It's only AU if you think it is. I hope that you enjoy it.

* * *

"_Chance is only the measure of our ignorance. Fortuitous phenomena are, by definition, those whose laws we are ignorant of."_

_Henri Poincaré_

Sans

Backwards messages scribbled at the bottom of mirrors; that's what I remember.

My mother was _mad_ you see. She was the traditional definition of madness. She saw things that did not exist – that _could not exist_ – and spoke with them. I was a part of her long, detailed, midnight ravings when she spoke in a language that I could not understand and was far from interpreting. She would whisper to me, later on, the things that the unseen creatures had whispered to her.

My mother was stark raving mad.

She was never _dangerous_ in her madness. She never once hurt _me_. Herself, sometimes, but it was not malicious; she needed the blood to scribble her messages. _Vincent, dear, the language is **inside of us**. It's written in our cells, in our **blood**_. She was mad, I told you.

A deep, unyielding, _contagious_ madness; that was my mother's.

In the night, she would tuck me into bed and already her eyes would be distant. She would smile and kiss my forehead but her eyes were watching something that I could not see. Sometimes she would mutter as she left the room.

I had the bizarre sense, even then, that she was _protecting _me though from what I could not say. _Them_, perhaps, or _it,_ as I named her madness, as if her madness were a physical entity that could press itself up between us and make it's presence known.

My mother's hair was a light, tangled blonde. Mine is black – I get it from my father – but there was no father in my life and my mother never spoke of him. The _others_ and _it_ were enough fathers for me. They distorted my mother and stole her time… that is what parents do for one and other, is it not?

I loved her dearly as a child though I knew that she was mad. I lived with it as I imagine all other children live with their parental ticks. Do we ever truly _question_ our parents? Children do not question; they inherently understand. And so I understood my mother and her madness and I embraced it and perhaps even loved it for I loved her dearly.

It is easier, I think, to believe her mad then to question if she truly _were…_ because if she was then I surely am as well because the madness is _catching_.

It was my folly – note: folly, not madness – that sent me back to the miserable square where I grew up. We lived in a forgotten corner of town, a long lost place. When I was younger the world seemed brighter but when I returned it was to a darker, greyer landscape. The graffiti seemed more jarring, more sinister where it had once been mysterious and colourful when I was a child. Different but not frightening…

Strange writing that I could not read, scribbled in blood – always in blood – on my bathroom mirror. I would ignore it and brush my teeth…

I had forgotten … I had forgotten about it until I walked past the derelict park where I used to play as a child, metal swings more like severed iron limbs swaying listlessly in a half-hearted breath of breeze. Every corner was a whisper and a memory. I brushed past the curb where I received my first injury. Pain is something that a child does not forget; it is intrinsic. We remember that fire is hot, that it burns. We remember the older boy who pushed us and how we fell against a curb that did nothing to soften the blow… how we stumbled home, crying, to a mother who wiped our tears and bandaged our hands with smile and a kiss to make it better. Some things we do not forget.

Blood in the windows, how could I have forgotten?

Adults do not remember. Adults train themselves to forget. They tell themselves that their mother was mad and that the madness was hers alone and that there is nothing in the mirror because, logically, _there can be nothing in the mirror_. There are no blood-messages scribbled in our adult world, not on mirrors or windows or anything else.

_It has to be a passage, Vincent. Where do you think it leads, your window? What do you think it sees, your mirror? They are watching **us**. They can see **us**._

My mother was mad but I am not. That is what I tell myself – told myself.

Until I looked up from shaving and saw the message on the mirror, a message that I had not written, scribbled in blood. Until I looked up and saw _something else_ looking back at me. _It was not human_ and I was alone in the room. When my eyes shot back to the mirror, the corner was free again and I was alone.

I am not mad. I have had doctors, doctors, doctors, since I was thirteen and my mother went _truly mad_ and the blood message that she left for me trailed from her wrists in long thick lines, making patterns in the water. A final gift for the others. A sacrifice. The medium had become the message.

Yes, my sense of humour has long been morbid.

I am a clear-cut man; I believe in science. My mother was mad and her madness, however benign it may once have been, drove her to suicide. That is the reality that is given to me. That is the truth of the situation that has been painted for me.

But turn logic sideways and you have chaos theory staring at you. Patterns disintegrate into random chance and hidden variables and numbers that you cannot control… they tell me that the world is logical, that my mother was mad but I am not mad _and there was a man staring at me in my bathroom mirror_.

There are two logical explanations. The first is that I am mad, that I have snapped, that whatever madness swallowed my mother is devouring me as well and it will not be long until I too am leaving messages in doorways – no, they were mirrors and windows, not doorways – and muttering dark things where no one can hear them.

The second is that _my mother was not mad_.

That realization jolted me out of bed at two thirty in the morning and left me frantically feeling for a light. I have never been afraid of the dark – the others meant me no harm as a child until they killed my mother – but in that moment I was petrified because if my mother was not mad then there truly were watchers in the dark … and they could be watching me _right now_.

Any sane man would be afraid.

I stumbled to the bathroom and splashed water on my face, all the while avoiding looking at the mirror – the door. I kept my eyes down and yet the whole time I could feel something watching me from behind. I was deathly afraid that something was going to lay its hand down on my shoulder and whisper my name _Vincent_ the way my mother had always done… _Vincent_.

Paranoia is a symptom of those who are mad. I am not mad. I am not _clinically insane_.

Paranoia… paranoia… is the only logical course in a mad world.

I grabbed my jacket and fled my apartment. The city is dangerous at night; I would be mad to wander its streets alone at night. But I am not mad.

I stumbled my way past the well-manicured streets that I know; past the well-to-do and then past the well-off, and further still to the not-so-badly-off, to the poor and then the destitute and then finally, shockingly, I slid down into the forgotten, the grey, the land of my childhood.

Garbage in the streets and skeleton trees; gravel that looks up at me and a flat, concrete sky. It is a place where the rules of our society have broken down, where there is no 'tax', no 'people'. Here, there are only the others - the forgotten - that have slid down between the cracks and walk on the edge of another kind of door.

I understand, now, why we lived here.

The apartment complex where I grew up is long abandoned. If there are people here then they are as reticent as my mother's manifestations. The steps that I walk up are silent but I feel them creaking underneath me. The building chokes me with its ponderous weight. Dust mites scrabble beneath me. My breath catches in my throat.

I hear music but I know that I am imagining it. The music that I am hearing could not exist. Logically, it cannot exist. I am imaging the scratchy record that my mother was so fond of; the soft blues and nameless singer that I knew so well, back then. I never knew the words to any of the songs and I still do not. My memory of music is toneless and diluted and such is the song that I _not_ hearing now.

Memory and time, they bleed together. People cannot distinguish them… the past becomes the present and the future. This building is dead but in my memory it is vivid and _alive_ and that alone is enough to breathe life back into it. Hence the music.

There is method in my madness, perhaps.

The apartment – number nine, but that is hardly significant – is unlocked and as I push the door open I am half expecting a dilute light from the kitchen to filter through and for my mother to smile at me and say _Vincent! How was your day?_ She was not truly mad, my mother. Not in the average, every day sense.

She was only mad past midnight.

There is nothing here though. Our old furniture is long gone – auctioned off, if I remember – and there is nothing left. The light from the street filters in from the curtainless windows and paints the empty, dirty apartment in an unnatural blue glow. I swallow, looking around. The living room, the kitchen… I remember where my bedroom was as well. But that's not what I've come here to see. That's not where the doorway lies. I'm looking for the bathroom… for the mirror.

My steps should creak – because I remember the floorboards always creaked here – and the silence alone is enough to frighten me. I walk to the bathroom noiselessly when there should be sound and stand by the doorway… it was always doors, thresholds… something about a place that could not be seen, that existed in the _in between_…

The bathroom is small and dark. I do not bother with the light switch; it would not make any sense to do so.

There is a memory – very sharp and sudden – of my mother, naked, lying in a pool of her own blood in the bathroom… eyes open and _smiling_ as if she could see what was taking her and she were welcoming it _with open arms_... but then it is gone again and there is only the oppressive weight of the bathroom mirror that is looking back at me.

It is broken and it should not be because I remember it being whole… yet it is broken and the glass is warped and faded. My feet crunch on the shards – finally a sound but it does not comfort me – as I walk up towards what remains of the mirror. There is a younger Vincent standing in front of me, using the stool his mother gave him to stand up and brush his teeth, not ignoring but not noticing either the blood that is scribbled on the bottom of the mirror.

My hands are shaking and I cannot stop them. I ignore them but there is no calm in my body, only the fluttering sense of _otherness_ that overwhelms me.

With trembling hands, I grab a piece of glass and drag it across my index finger. The pain is real enough to ground me for a moment but then it is snuffed out by the darkness, by the _otherness_ that swallows this room, this building.

_My mother was not mad_… I tell myself. _I am not mad_.

I press my finger against the shattered glass… a long, vertical line.

A child touches the stove and it burns him. He screams and cries because he has cut himself with a knife and it hurts him. A woman smiles at him and her smile alone could cut glass… glass, and it is cutting him. Glass and there are messages… messages… messages in the mirrors.

_**VINCENT! **_

A million volts of electricity run through me. I fall back and I... I... I can't breathe! There's a connection and then suddenly there are _ten thousand _voices screaming at me, screaming, screaming… and they _all know my name_.

My feet slip on the glass and I scarmble away from the mirror - _there are eyes, fucking **eyes**, looking at me - _and I cut my hands. Blood flicks off them, leaving patterns in the glass, in the dirt, in the air. The world is intricate, intricate, beautiful, terrible patterns. The cacophony in my mind is deafening and I AM NOT MAD!

Running, I am running all the way down the stairs, away from that terrible place… my mother was not mad... she was... my mother...

The voices follow me; they clamour at me to be heard. I am clutching at my head, tearing down the streets – I am running mad – and my tears blur the streetlights.

Patterns, can you see them? Patterns in the streetlight, patterns in the starlight? Everything, everything is a door. Mirrors, blood, windows… look out a window and _what do you see_?

Eventually, I have to stop. My chest heaves and I can taste blood in my throat… the voices flutter, concerned. They question. They ask. They wonder.

I press my fists against my eyes and slump down… I am in a park now, I realize. My back rests against a tree – infinitely old…

_Old_, the voices murmur. _Very, very old_.

I am terrified of these voices, these _others_. I feel their presence now, suffocating me. Men were not meant to know such things… we are not meant to…

Patterns, in everything. Do you see them?

I moan quietly and lean my head against the bark of the tree. I cannot… there is too much_ noise_. I cannot think.

The voices murmur quietly.

I feel them bubbling in my blood, my madness. This is _madness_. I am surely mad.

… my mother… beautiful creature… she was not _truly_ mad.

I hold my hand in front of my face. Blood trickles down from my fingers, down my palm. I am coated in it.

_Did you kill her? _I ask and I do not know to whom.

_Blood_, they murmur, as if it is a secret.

I close my eyes wearily.

No, I am not mad.

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	2. Sans: Le Sacrifice

**Author's Notes**: A little while after I wrote the first chapter to this story, I realized that there were some more things that I wanted to say. This may eventually turn into a series of snippets about Vincent's life as a Turk... but I'm fairly absorbed in a few other things right now so updates will probably be very sporadic.

The man that Vincent speaks to in this is Veld, the leader of the Turks from Final Fantasy: Before Crisis. In BC, Veld speaks toVincent and refers to him as an'old time partner'. Lots of people have interpreted this to mean that they knew each other and worked together. I'm just following the crowd.

Cendrillo thought up the last name for Veld that I'm using and let me borrow it from her. Thanks Cendri.

Enjoy the story everyone.

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Sans: Le Sacrifice 

Have you ever been the only person awake in your house while everyone else is sleeping? You walk on soundless feet, making sure not to wake them and feel around in the dark. It starts off as a game until something – you don't know what – changes and your breath catches in your throat. Rationally, you know that there's nothing to be afraid off. Logically, there is nothing to be afraid of … but you still almost-run to your bedroom and fumble for a light switch to disperse the eyes that _are not there_.

The watchers, they're real. They're real and I have woken them up.

They whisper to me constantly andare always there in the back of my mind. They know everything and that terrifies me. If it exists or if it had existed, they know it intimately. They _are_ it. They make it up, every atom of it. They are the creatures that live in between; the lurkers, the watchers, the whisperers.

I have learnt to tune them out, in a way. It takes focus for me to hear them clearly. If I were to listen to them too carefully I am sure that their voices would drive me mad. Their knowledge… it snakes its way into me like maggots in my brain. I do not want to know. I hate them and their secrets. If I could, I would turn them off but I cannot. A pact cannot be broken, they tell me. A pact.

Blood pact.

Blood, it fascinates them. It defines them. Blood is interior, hidden and continuous. Like them, its links can be drawn across generations. A mother's sickness translates to her child. To speak with them, all I need is blood. To speak with them, I need to use another language. In my mind, I am speaking _our_ words but when I speak to _them_ it is something else entirely. It sounds… more like a series of growls and hisses than anything else. The language too was hidden in our blood.

That is one thing that the others cannot clearly explain to me. I have asked them again and again why I can hear the when so many cannot. I want to find a cure for my affliction. I want to be stupidly, blissfully, _normal_ again. The others cannot explain it to me though. They can't tell me what makes them what they are. What makes a man human, people sometimes wonder. It is the same kind of question. It is a question without an answer.

I am trapped now with my voices.

_.o.o.o.o._

The others are not omniscient; they cannot see the future and they do not know what lies within men's hearts. Because of these two things neither they nor I could ever have predicted what was to happen. In retrospect it should have been evident. My only excuse is that it was not.

_.o.o.o.o._

The first time that I questioned the others after trying for months – months – to be free of them, I was moved by kindness. I had never been a cruel man, no more so than any other. There was a time, before the mirror and the voices, when I was a typical human being. That person still echoes inside of me and perhaps it was his kindness that moved me.

I never strayed far from the city of my childhood. I belonged there in the lost rubble of the underworld and I met many people as I wandered. One night, I stayed with a woman and her daughter. The child was a bright, beautiful thing. I revealed in their company for one night and then come morning I moved on again.

Eventually, I returned to that place – for we always return to where we have come from, eventually – and I found the woman alone. She broke down when I asked her about her daughter. Gone, she cried. Gone and she did not know where. She'd walked for days trying to find her but, nothing.

Eventually, the woman cried herself to sleep.

I stayed up all night, watching a sky without stars, without lights of any kind. I remembered stars from my other like but there were invisible in this place.

I my pocket, I always carried a small knife, a habit from Gods-knew when. It was more efficient now. They always needed blood, the others.

I dripped my offering onto the dust of the windowsill – I learnt long ago that the medium didn't matter, only the pattern that it revealed – and asked my question.

They are always so gods-damned _pleased_ when I ask a question.

The blood bubbled and boiled and rearranged itself and I watched in horrid fascination. I knew the answer to my question.

._o.o.o.o._

The next day, I took the mother with me. I walked with her for the four miles that we needed to travel to find her daughter.

We buried what was left of her not too far from there.

Afterwards, the mother wept and called me an angel. I was too sick from my stolen knowledge and the others' slimy satisfaction to say anything in response to her self-glorification of me.

_.o.o.o.o._

Good, stupid, simple woman that she was, she probably sang my praises all across the underworld, weeping tears of glory. A few weeks later there was another person – a man this time – with another question.

I debated all night long before giving in. I was too soft in the early days. I gave him his answer the next morning.

The knowledge always sickened me. Sometimes I would spend hours retching after the fact. It all depended on the question. In the end though, they always gave me my answer. Only the price differed.

Sometimes I turned people away. I grew tired of them, the people and the questions. It became rare that I would answer them but the pilgrims continued to come. I would move to find peace from them but news traveled fast in the underworld. In those days, I did not know how to hide myself from my fellow man. Stupid, foolish creature that I was, sometimes I would still give in and answer their questions. It only encouraged others.

They deified me, those stupid lost denizens. I heard my name on other people's lips. I became a secret in and of myself. I tried to disappear but it was not enough. He still found me.

_.o.o.o.o._

My last place… yes, I had a certain fondness for it. I had built for myself a hermitage within that concrete city. It was almost peaceful there. That was enough for me.

He arrived in the evening. At sunset, actually. I remember it because I had been watching the sky. There are beautiful patterns in a sunset if you know how to look for them.

He knocked on my door. I cannot explain how shocking it can be to have someone knock on your door after nearly a month of forced isolation.

"… Come in," I said. Ridiculous how my voice could be scratchy from disuse but I still remembered the nicer rules of society. When someone knocks on your door, you say come in.

I have to say, I was not impressed by him the first time that I saw him. An immaculate suit, a crisp tie, but a nondescript face and shaggy brown hair. I would not have remembered him in a crowd.

What made me look at him though were the others. They murmured in quiet fascination. They were _intrigued_ and that alone was enough to frighten me. They had never been _intrigued_ by anything before. It was then that I noticed that there was something wrong with his eyes. They… glowed.

The stranger gestured wordlessly for me to sit and I did so automatically. I didn't even wonder at it then, I was so disturbed by the man's eyes. He glared at me a moment or two before speaking.

"I need to see it," he said in a clipped tone. Somehow I had the strong feeling that the man disliked me though I had never met him before. I believe that I may have blinked at him, probably stupidly.

"See… what?"

The man's glare intensified.

"You have a talent, Mr. Valentine. I need to see it."

I froze. Somehow he knew my name. More thanthat though, the man made me… uneasy.

"If you have a question…" I said carefully, "Ask me and you may return in the morning for your answer."

The man shook his head once, twice, and that was all.

"No, I need to see it."

There was anger there that I could feelbut couldnot understand. The others were jabbering fiercely. I tried to tune them out and the effort made the room spin.

I can't explain why I did it. I should have turned him away. The man disturbed me. And yet… when he looked at me like that I found myself reaching for my knife and the others were ecstatic. Their emotion deafened me. Perhaps they were moving through me but the concept was and is too perturbing to contemplate. Their elation was almost sexual in its intensity. It was more than nauseating and it sickened me to my very core.

I pricked my finger and, after a moment's hesitation, sliced it open completely. Blood fell and sizzled where it landed. Something… something simple, I thought to myself.

I bent forward and whispered my question against the blood smear on the table between us. The man leaned forward.

The voices were so fierce that my vision swirled and I needed to swallow back bile.

"Your name is… Veld Dragoon," I hissed between clenched teeth.

"Too easy," he snapped voice clipped and automatic. That time I glared at him. I was angry.

The second time, I brandished my knife in front of him and with a rare flare I sliced open my entire palm. I hardly even felt the pain. I planted it down on the dusty table between us and I lowered my face to my palm. I whispered brokenly and looked up at him, his eyes glowing faintly in the setting sun. The others were frantic, elated. Seductively, I murmured to them. I asked them for a secret.

The room whirled and felt them slam into me. My hand jerked up on the table and something _bent_ and _rippled_ around the room. The sense of wrongness, of otherness, was almost over whelming. The man stood up and in one fluid motion drew his gun automatically.

Oh, it went beyond nausea. It was pain, as if every atom in my body was realigning itself. It burned and I had to bite back my moan, my whole body shaking with the feeling.

Finally, I slumped back against my chair and the only pain that I could feel was the dull ache in my palm and finger. The others fluttered around me, ridicuously satisfied. I don't believe that I had ever truly hated them as deeply as I did in that moment. I looked up at the stranger, Veld, and starred down the barrel of his gun. My eyes were as cold as his when I spoke.

"You had two sisters once," I murmur darkly. "Julia and Akasha. Your mother died giving birth to them. It was up to you to raise them for you father had left as well. Not maliciously, of course, but the man had not long outlived your mother. Some part of you still hates him for that because it left you alone with your two sisters. You did so well for someone so young… but there was a fire in your apartment complex when you were away. It wasn't your fault but that did not stop the guilt from eating at you… You were thirteen years old."

I finished with a finality that shook the room and for a very brief moment I was sure that that man would kill me. In that moment, I welcomed it .

Eventually, the safety of his handgun snapped back into place and he tucked the weapon away again.

"Valentine," and just like that we had dropped any honorifics. I felt that I had done the man wrong and yet I did not regret it. It was impossible to regret it. "I have a proposition for you."

_.o.o.o.o._

He explained it all to me, his employer, the nature of his work. There would be blood. Oh yes, there would be oceans and oceans of blood.

The others were pleased when I shook his hand, the blood on my palm smearing his. I don't know what perturbed me more: the fact that they were pleased or the fact that I had done all of this to _please them_.

A blood pact, they tell me gleefully, cannot be broken.

* * *


	3. Sans: Émoi

**Author's Notes**: I upped the rating on this story to M because of violence and sexual scenes. If that bothers you, please don't continue reading.

If anyone is interested in what the random French words mean in this story, please feel free to ask me. It might get a touch redundant if I talk about them in every AN though.

* * *

Sans: Émoi

The woman arches up against the man, moaning against his mouth. He sweats and heaves above her, thrusting into her again and again. I crinkle my nose at them. Their rutting disgusts me but my purpose here is not to judge. I pull the trigger and the man's head explodes, spewing blood onto the woman.

When she does not stop screaming, I shoot her as well.

_.o.o.o.o.o._

Veld nods at my report and I take it that I am dismissed. The man does not look up at me again and I turn and leave the office.

What can I say of my new occupation? Very little, in fact. I am…

Yes, I wonder perhaps if I am becoming less human. Inside, I am remarkably still. There is very little disturbs me lately and even the others seem oddly lethargic. I try not to wonder at that.

I have not been forced to ask a question for months and that surprises me. I had expected, when I accepted this position, to be constantly grilled for answers. My leader, however, seems to have taken an instant dislike to me and refuses to speak to me beyond what could be considered a professional level. I do not know why he hates me so. I imagine that it has something to do with the night we met… and yet I also realize that there is more to it than that. That man hated me the moment he laid eyes upon me and I do not understand why. His hatred seems to extend to my additional talents as well. He does not ask me questions and so I give no answers. It is both invigorating and perturbing. I am pleased that I do not have to speak with the others… and yet I am constantly dreading the cessation of this bizarre truce.

These four months should have left an impression on me, I realize. Veld commented once on how quickly I took to the training. My colleagues mutter when I pass by them and my missions are often solo ones. It suits me well enough. I have…

It seems strange to say and yet I fear that I am developing an acute dislike for humanity. These past four months have only solidified what I learnt in the underworld. I have asked so many questions and the answers were always so … unpalatable. I come back often to that woman whose daughter I helped bury. Strange how all the other faces may blur together but hers, at least, remains for me. I mourn her, perhaps.

I wonder sometimes if the hopelessness that pervades my daily life is just a symptom of this city. I look up at the slate-grey sky beneath which I am walking. The rain burns in this city. There is something stagnant and unnatural about this place... I do not wish to remain here.

I am very painfully aware of what will happen to me should I chose to leave without permission, however. It is a price that I chose to pay the day I made my blood pact to this corporation. I am theirs, it would seem.

I stop at the small grocery shop two blocks from my apartment on the way home. I would very much like to cook myself a warm dinner tonight. It is a luxury that I enjoy.

The woman at the counter always smiles at me here. She is a young thing, thirty years old perhaps – though I wonder at my classification of her; I am only twenty-two – with curly blonde hair and an honest face. She calls me 'Mr. Laflèche', my pseudonym, and chatters foolishly about the weather with me. I smile at her politely, nodding and occasionally commenting. She is a young, honest thing and I enjoy her company.

The grocer should have gone out of business two months ago when a large super-complex was proposed not far from here. However, its business dealings mysteriously fell through. I marveled at my luck… and then realized the truth of it. Veld explained it to me one night.

We have given our lives to the Shinra and for that they are oddly grateful. There is little comfort that a Turk will ever be deprived of, whether or not he or she is aware of it. My small grocer will never go out of business so long as I frequent it. The coffee shop that I occasionally visit will always remain open. The street that I live on will never become busier than it is now, a small dusty thing in this bustling metropolis of a city. These things will never change so long as I desire them and should I desire them to change they shall do so without me ever voicing my complaint.

I am disgusted with the power that has been given me. I have never once wished to hold sway over another man's life. I do not want to be thus accommodated… but it is impossible for me to change the circumstances of my life. Thus, I thank the young girl who bags my groceries and carry on.

I cut through an alley to make it back to my apartment complex. It feels very distinctly like it's going to rain soon. I dislike the rain intensely.

I pause halfway through the alley. There was a muffled sound and I scan the scene. My hand almost reaches for the gun tucked at my waist until I hear the sound clearly again. Chuckling at my foolishness, I walk forward towards the noise.

A large grey cat looks up at me and meows. He is a bizarre one – a Persian I believe they're called – dusty grey with a black, scrunched up face. His fur is terribly mated and he looks a bit thin through his midsection. I crouch down beside the animal and it backs off from me. I tsk inwardly and rummage around in my bag, searching for something suitable.

Smiling, I pull out a package of pre-cooked salmon. I had been planning on having it for dinner but… I break off a piece of the fish and place it in front of the animal a few feet away from me. Warily, the animal looks at the fish and then at me. Slowly, it creeps forward and lowers its face to the food. I smile.

When the animal is done, I break off another piece of salmon. The cat starts up a simple purr. It has likely been a long time since it has had something this good to eat, I imagine. It was a probably a housecat that strayed too far from its owner. An animal like that was not born on these streets.

I stand up slowly and the cat looks up at me. I consider it a moment or two before turning to walk away. I pause.

"If you would like," I tell it over my shoulder, "you may follow me home."

Without looking back, I carry on my way again.

_.o.o.o.o.o._

My apartment complex is only two blocks away. I climb the metal fire escape to my apartment and get in through the window. There's a catch on the inside that only I can operate. I prefer this to the building's main entrance.

The rain starts almost as soon as I make it inside. I watch the rain fall for a moment or two in my dark kitchen before turning on the lights. There's a muffled meow and I smile.

I walk back to the window and let my new houseguest in. The cat looks up at me and meows again. Dutifully, I rustle around and hand it more fish. The animal's tattoo starts up in the room. I crouch down beside the animal, considering it. Yes, it was most definitely a pet before this. It is far too easy around humans.

"I will call you Sojiro," I tell the animal quietly. It ignores me. I grin, amused at myself, and walk towards the main entry, hanging up my coat. My apartment is what they used to call 'open concept'. The entry, living room, and kitchen area are all linked. The bedroom is located down a short hall and is the only room with a door besides the bathroom. The Turk in me appreciates the arrangement; there are very few places to hide here.

After I am done in the entry, I head to the living room and stretch out on my couch, closing my eyes. Now that I am home, I do not feel like eating. There is no television here – I have no need of one – and I keep the lights off in the living room. My shoulder aches faintly, an injury from a few nights ago that hasn't quite healed yet.

My mouth twists. I do not want to think about work.

I sigh and pinch two fingers against my nose. A man and a woman tonight. The woman had thick black hair... but the man scarcely mattered at all. A man and a woman tonight, a man tomorrow night, a family the next. I grow tired of death.

My eyes snap open, listening. I swallow. I should not… let myself get like this. I hear them rustling. I close my eyes slowly and breathe out. I focus on the animal that is still eating in the kitchen, on the rain that is hitting the window. Sometimes, it helps.

Sometimes, it makes things worse. There is a pattern to everything if you are willing to listen to it. That rain? It mixes in with the animal's purr, which blends with the thunder. The wind is a counterpoint. My heart, my breathing, there is a rhythm to it.

They hiss at me and I sit up suddenly, eyes darting about the room. I swallow and my nails dig into the leather of my couch. My breathing comes faster. It has been so long since I have spoken with them. I … I do not wish to speak with them.

There is a shift and something growls at me. My eyes dart about the room. I desperately wish that I had turned on the lights in the living room. I wish that I had not come home. I –

A sharp cry to the left of me. I jump up and my hand reaches for my gun but it's useless. _There's nobody there_.

There's a woman screaming in the next room. No, she's not screaming. There is no woman screaming.

_The woman has blood on her hair and she still grips the dead man on top of her. She will not stop **screaming**._

I spin around, facing the kitchen. The light burns at my eyes.

_There is a room and it is burning. There are girls screaming inside of it. Nobody saves them._

"Stop this," I hiss at them. I am not brave. I am not trying to be brave. My anger is quick though.

_A man growls dangerously, his hands shaking. He is holding a knife. He looks at the man in front of him and the man steps back. There is a strong scent of fear in the air. He can smell it._

"What is this?" I ask. My hands clutch at my head. It _hurts_

_and that man will suffer for it. Excitement bubbles in his blood. His hands shake uncontrollably at his side. The man in front of him is already bleeding and the blood excites him. The wounded man backs up slowly. _

"Please," he begs. The other man's mouth stretches into an unnatural smile. No one could stop him now.

"Stop it –"

_- please gods," the fallen man begs. He is shaking all over now. The other man's hands are not. One holds a knife and blood drips from it. He lunges._

I fall to the floor, gasping for breath. My hand flies to my chest. Why can't I … gods, why can't I breathe?

_The man convulses, his hand flying to the knife lodged in his chest. The other man laughs. He **twists** and there is a scream_

A cat hisses; the noise is sudden

_and is gone again. The other man stands and looks down. His eyes… there is something wrong with his eyes._

"Please,"

_a dying man whispers. The other man watches him die, his chest heaving. Something changes though. A shiver runs through him and he stumbles back. His knees give out from underneath him and his hands fly to his head. There is a man screaming in the back of his mind and he can still **hear** him. Shaking, he brings his hands to his face and stares in horror at what's left of the man in front of him. His eyes are wide and unblinking. What... what has he done?_

Eventually, I can hear my breathing again, harsh and ragged in the room. I cough convulsively and I feel blood flick against my fingers. When I am able to, I pull myself up slowly, using the couch as leverage. I try to slow my breathing and choke on the blood again. Shakily, I draw in a few unsteady breaths. I listen.

Nothing. The voices have stopped.

I lean back against the couch, my chest still heaving. My heart aches where the man stabbed me. No, that did not happen. I run my hand over my eyes.

They're getting worse, these visions. I do not understand why the others choose to show me these things. I wonder perhaps if I am being punished for some indiscretion and yet... they are not usually malicious, the others. There is some purpose here that I do not understand - that I do not wish to understand.

I raise a shaky hand to my face and look at my fingers. There is a faint muttering. I sigh. That, I can handle. I pray that they will stay distant and quiet for a little while longer.

I close my eyes wearily. The stolen memory plays its way back through me again. A murder in the back of an alley. It could have been any man... it is common in this city. And yet... and yet there was something wrong with his eyes.

I pull myself up onto the couch and lie down again. My chest hurts and my lungs feel scathed. I breathe in an out slowly, trying to convince my body that it didn't die, that that was another man.

There is blood on my hands. I wipe them on my pants absently.

The others murmur quietly in the back of my mind again. This volume I can tolerate. It is the constant backdrop with which I view the world. _Why show me that?_ I wonder at them. They do not answer, however. I have not asked a true question.

For a moment, I consider it. The knife is still in my pocket even though it has been months and months since I have drawn it. I shy away from that thought, however. I am too sick and tired from the hallucination… and the prospect of _speaking_ to them nauseates me, even now.

I close my eyes and turn my face to the back of the couch. I need to rest... My ears pick up at the sound of padded feet. My mouth curves up.

"I am sorry if I frightened you," I murmur quietly before blissfully giving into sleep.

* * *


	4. Sans: Une fenêtre

**Author's notes**: I do realize that I've been a terrible pirate who hasn't updated in ages. I also realize that the people who are reading this are probably wishing that it was Contact and that I'd finished the bloody thing. Well, I don't have a finished draft of the last chapter of Contact (because it's being annoying and isn't _right_ yet) and I've been occupied with other things... I was updating my account at shinra(dash)electric(dash)co(dot)net though (a _goodfic_ archive run by a friend of mine) and realized that I _did_ have a completed version for _this_ story. Contact should hopefully be soon. Otherwise, enjoy some Sans.

This story has led to a lot more than I had anticipated... I'm debating if I want to post all of it here. Would you be interested in a Veld-backstory fic-arc?

* * *

Sans: Une fenêtre

I am sitting in my apartment, tucked up on the chair in my living room. Sojiro is sitting on my lap and I'm running a comb through his tangled fur. He makes that strange cat-like growl deep in his throat if I tug on a particularly bad patch. I apologize and wait until he lets me continue.

I look over my shoulder to the kitchen and its one large window. It's late evening now and, predictably, there are no stars to be seen in the deceptively blue sky. It still throws me, this lack of starlight in the evening. At least there is a sky here though, I think to myself. In the underworld, we didn't even have that luxury.

There is a cup of steaming raspberry tea on my coffee table sitting beside and equally steamy teapot. The tea does not really suit me, I realize, looking at it on my table. The woman at the grocery store gave it to me as a gift one day and I was too polite to refuse. To polite to not-drink it as well, I suppose. The flavour is too sweet for me and… and the colour displeases me.

My mouth twists and I am unusually hard with Sojiro. He growls at me and I look down at him.

"My apologies," I murmur. He settles on my lap and I continue with my treatment.

Eventually, I will finish that cup of tea, ignoring the unpleasant images that it brings to mind. At least I am not so far gone as to do _that_.

Thankfully, my blood-red tea is simply tea. I am not a monster yet.

_.o.o.o.o.o._

The office is oddly quiet the next morning. Celeste — the woman — is on assignment and Lee is also nowhere to be found. Mikel is missing as well. Today, it appears that it will only be Veld and I in the office. How unpleasant.

I do not bother walking down to my superior's office — there would be no point to it — and head instead to my small cubby-hole of a room. It is small and sparse as befits my rank. So far as I understand it, when one of my colleagues dies, I'll be offered their position and their office. Needless to say, I am content with my own.

At least there is a window, I muse, looking outside from my vantage point. This building is ridiculous. What need does a man have to reach such heights? I will never understand it.

"Valentine," a voice orders from down the hall. I do not sigh though for a moment I feel the urge to. There is only one man in all of Midgar that could put as much annoyance and spite into one word. Perhaps I should be honoured that it is a tone that he reserves only for me.

Without hesitation I get to my feet and walk the short distance down to Veld's office. He is — as he always is — working on some unknown file. His desk is meticulously clean, however. You would never know how much the man does from his desk. Everything is neatly staked, ordered, filed. Nothing is out of place in the office of Veld Dragoon.

"Sit," he says eventually without looking up and I do so. I am very well trained.

"How's your head Valentine?" Veld asks in a dead, flat voice, still scratching away at his file. I manage to hide my irritation. So it was going to be one of those days today. Veld occasionally asks me into his office when we are uncharacteristically alone on the floor and inquires about my 'health'. Always the same question, always the same answer. I don't understand why he maintains this spectacle.

"I am well, thank you," I answer. Veld's pen stops scratching and he looks up at me. I feel the unconscious urge to fidget.

Veld has a way of looking at people. I have the very distinct feeling that he realizes that I'm lying and that he's waiting for me to confess. I, however, have very little inclination to do so. It is one thing to realize that one is clinically insane; it's quiet another to discuss the matter with one's superior.

Veld shakes his head and looks back at his report. Without looking at me he comments blandly, "I'm tempted to have you checked out by the doctors kid," he says as if it means nothing. "I kept you from them when you started here — for obvious reasons — but maybe they'd be able to do something for you."

I do not believe that Veld is being sincere.

"That will not be necessary, thank you," I say politely. He eyes me again but this time I meet him stare for stare. I am not enjoying this conversation. The man has an annoying habit of smirking at me when he feels that he's 'won' one of our dialogue matches.

"Well, I don't that you'd like the science department poking at you. Hell, they do enough here as it is…"

He mutters the last bit and looks down at his report again, frowning. When he looks up again there's something slightly… different about his face.

"Are you really alright though?" he asks the question candidly, honestly, and for a moment I am surprised. He sounds almost… sincere. I wonder at it.

The realization comes quick, of course. I am a Turk for a reason. The doctors were a ruse — he had no intention of sending me to them — but the juxtaposition of his earlier comments and his newer ones is enough that he almost, almost, sounds honestly concerned.

Veld is an incredibly clever man.

"I am fine, thank you," I reply. Veld looks at me for a moment before shaking his head to himself.

"Look, kid," he says quietly, using a tone that I am not accustomed to hearing. He only speaks like this on the rarest of occasions. The last time was when Celeste nearly died on a mission. Veld bandaged her wounds and spoke to her in much the same tone. This is making me feel decidedly uncomfortable. Veld's words lap at me.

"You've been slipping kid," he says quietly, as if he is confiding in me, "not enough for the others to see it but I certainly have. I need to know if things are getting worse for you — if the job's too much for you — because we're going to have to work around it. You realize what kind of contract you've signed here but the last thing I need is a rogue Turk on my hands. So, I'll ask you one last time. How _are_ you Vincent?"

My eyes widen at the name — he never calls me by name — and I look at the man looking at me. Veld is always unreadable and yet…

I stand slowly, keeping my eyes on him.

"I thank you for your concern," I say quietly, looking down at the man, "but I am in good health. Please do not be troubled with me."

I bow my head — because the situation seems oddly formal to me — and I wait until I feel more than see Veld return my bow. I turn and leave his office at that point.

I have the very distinct feeling that he watches the entire time.

_o.o.o.o.o._

Veld's door slid shut and he leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful look on his face. The kid was very obviously lying. Valentine was a good Turk but he wasn't _that_ good. He was still very young… in some ways, Veld mused. Valentine always slightly looked haunted.

Veld fished for a cigarette in his jacket pocket, taking a deliberate care with his lighter. He took a long drag and exhaled slowly.

_Maybe it is too much for him_, Veld wondered and frowned at that thought. He hadn't lied to Valentine; he didn't want a rogue Turk on his hands or, worse, a dead one. The last thing Veld needed was for Valentine to go _truly_ crazy and become Veld's responsibility.

Though he wasn't really crazy, Veld realized. He and Valentine were perhaps the only two people in all of Midgar that realized that… but in this kind of world, what do you call someone like Valentine except crazy? He's either insane or a messiah. Veld smirked at the thought. No, Valentine was definitely crazy.

At that thought, Veld frowned. Outwardly, Valentine looked the same way Valentine always did — too pale, too polite, and too damned underfed. If you really paid attention to it though…

It was his eyes that gave him away, Veld realized. Valentine had a habit of searching a room when he entered it. Sometimes, if you spoke to him, his eyes would flick away as if he were being distracted by something. He didn't always answer you right away when you spoke to him. It was just enough to make you realize that there was something slightly off about him.

Those slips had been rare at the beginning, Veld remembered. It had made him confident in his choice in Valentine. Now, he was beginning to wonder. Veld starred hard at the door that Valentine had just left and took another long drag on his cigarette, considering his options.

Gods, they didn't pay him enough for this.

_.o.o.o.o.o._

Another mission tonight. Another man but in the back of an alley this time. How many manila envelopes have I filled away with a bright red 'complete' stamp on them? Red. It figures.

I lie in bed shivering. I am so gods-damned cold. It isn't me though. I am not cold.

Somewhere, a child is dying and nobody realizes it. I don't understand why I have to see this… I just want to be warm. Why was it so dark?

_Mommy? Daddy? Where are you?_

His parents were dead. They had died and the child was lost and…

_My hands hurt… Mommy? It's cold Mommy. I wanna go home._

"Please stop this," I force out between chattering teeth. They ignore me.

_The child lifts his head up. The sky is dark tonight. He is so very lost. He is crying softly._

I know where the child's parents are. They died; they were killed. Two miles away there is a patch of snow that is deep red. I had to watch that too.

My shivering reaches its peak. I'm almost convulsing, alone in my apartment.

_The child's tears freeze on his cheeks. He tries to wipe at them but he can't feel his hands. He whimpers._

If I sob out, I'm not sure if it's me or the slowly dying child. There is nothing that I can do for that boy. Why do they make me watch this?

_The child falls down in the snow, his back against a tree. He is so very tired now…_

I curl up into myself, trying to stay warm.

_Maybe he would just sleep for a while… he closes his eyes._

If I close my eyes, it doesn't help. I can still _see_ him. I am … gods, I am so very very cold.

_He doesn't feel it when his heart stops._

I die with that child. Somewhere, I am dying with him. When he dies, I die as well.

I beat my hand against my bed and the sound is hollow and bitter like my frustrations. _What do you show me these things_, I hiss at them. They watch me inquisitively. Slowly, I pull myself up. My hands and feet are still numb. I'm shaking all over.

"Why do you show me these things?" I growl at them. They flutter, agitated by my emotion. The do not answer, however. I have not asked them a proper question.

"Fuck your questions!" I shout at them and they scatter gibbering. My hands fly to my eyes. It's too bright. I can't _hear_ them right. I can't…

There is the very sudden feeling of a hand against the back of mine. I fly back suddenly. They've never touched me before. Gods how can they…?

I open my eyes and there's a blurry sense of someone else, someone physical. I try to make the image resolve itself but I can't see right.

"Easy kid," the voice comes soft. I tense. "I'm not going to hurt you," it adds.

There is a sound of muffled footsteps and that presence is right beside me. I don't know who this person is.

A hand rests against my shoulder and I take the invitation to lie down.

"Fuck, you're ice cold," the voice swears. I smile bitterly.

"A child died," I confide secretly. I feel the presence start. "He froze to death," I add.

"Did you see that Valentine?" the voice asks quietly but I am already sleeping. There is a vague sensation of a blanket touching my shoulders and then there is nothing at all.

* * *


	5. Sans: Discours

**Author's Notes**: Good news and bad. The good news is that I was two chapters in Sans ready and willing to go. Part 6 will be up some time relatively soon. Yay.

The bad news is for people who are reading Contact. It's sad to say but I've lost my final draft of its last chapter. If this has ever happened to any of you, I'm sure that you can commiserate. It's not _too_ terrible because I do have another, older draft that I can work with. It's just difficult when you lose a chapter, that's all. But, perseverance, right?

As for this chapter, the tone is a little bit lighter and it's a little more Veld centric. For those of you who are interested, I've decided to post a url in my user profile where you can find a link to my writing journal. There, you'll find my Veld backstory Passive. It's not even close to being complete yet and it's not entirely necessary that you read the backstory along with Sans either. It could potentially clear some things up though. If you're not familiar with livejournal, read the points in my user profile. So long as I don't have any problems, I don't mind leaving the url up and keeping my journal public.

* * *

Sans: Discours

I have a dream that night.

Most of the times that I dream I can feel the others slinking around on the edge of my vision, watching me. I'm always nervous when I'm dreaming because a dream is so much more their reality. Sometimes they intervene.

I'm dreaming about feathers. Small, black, brown, white feathers. I can't see my body – I can't see myself – but when I walk forward in the bizarre obscurity that makes up the non-reality of my dream, I see feathers. They've fallen in clumps, they've been scattered by the wind – there's no rhyme or reason to it. I can't identify the birds that they belong to: a pigeon, maybe, a sea gull. A jay, a sparrow, a crow. None of them stand out: they all blend together as if my entire world was made up of ugly, pale feathers. I wonder if I they'll disappear when I touch them.

I hear wing beats but all the birds are dead. Their feathers have been burnt away.

I wake up.

_.o.o.o.o.o. _

The first thing that I'm conscious of is the pain, even before I open my eyes. My head _hurts_. It hurts like it never has before. I roll over in bed and bury my face in my pillow, my hand cupping the bridge of my nose. If I open them, I know that my eyes will water. A residue, maybe, from last night.

Last night?

I hear someone step in my apartment and that makes me flip and sit up in bed automatically. The motion makes me nauseous immediately and I double forward, eyes squeezing shut tight. When my stomach calms down enough, I open my blurry eyes slowly and listen carefully. Yes, there is most definitely someone walking around in my apartment. I listen closer: the others are watching but are quiet today. Good.

Carefully, I inch towards the edge of my bed and pull my spare pistol out from my bedside table. I cock it. Of course it's already loaded.

The floor is cold on my bare feet. I realize then that I'm only wearing a pair of cotton pants – no shirt. There's sweat on my back and it makes me shiver. I have the vaguest memory of a cold hand against the back of mine but I shake it off. Now is not the time.

I open my door soundlessly – I am a Turk, after all – and I pad my way down the hallway. There's a light in my kitchen. I round the corner.

"Put the piece away Valentine," a familiar voice says. "I doubt that you're going to shoot me."

My eyes widen as I see exactly who is standing by my stove and, at my best estimate, cooking in my kitchen. The gun clicks as I lay it down against the nearest counter top.

"Veld?" I ask, clearly confused. He looks over his shoulder at me, looks me up and down, and then his eyes go back to whatever he's shaking at in a skillet on my stove top.

"Don't you have anything decent that you could wear, kid?"

I look down at myself. Maybe I should've put a shirt on. Wait, this is an irrelevant topic, isn't it?

"What are you doing here Veld?" I ask. I don't need to see Veld's face to know his expression: a small smirk that can be insanely irritating.

"You don't remember?" he asks simply, shaking his – no my - skillet again before using a spatula to place two eggs Florentine on two separate plates. He has apparently made hash browns too. I didn't know that the man could cook.

"I-" I start but then suddenly it's there: a hand against mine, a child. "…oh," I say and inexplicably my legs are feeling weak. Residue, I tell myself again, from last night. I walk a few shaky steps forward to sit at my table. If Veld notices he doesn't comment. Instead, he moves to whatever he's cooking on the other burner.

"… I didn't have eggs," I say and I have no idea why. Veld flips whatever's in the second skillet – something green. Fried vegetables?

"I know," he says, working in my kitchen. "I went out to the corner store this morning. You have an atrocious selection, you know."

"I apologize," I say, staring blankly the table. I'm waiting to wake up. For some reason that reminds me of feathers.

A plate flops unceremoniously in front of me. I was right: eggs Florentine, hash browns, and fried green vegetables. I look up and Veld looks somewhat serious.

"Eat," he says. I think that I'm going to be sick.

He sits down across from me and glares at me a moment before attacking his eggs. I look at mine for a moment before hesitantly putting a forkful in my mouth.

It's delicious. I've never felt so ill in my entire life.

_.o.o.o.o.o. _

Veld finishes first and waits for me to do so. I fight against my nausea and put a few more forkfuls of egg and potato into my mouth. Eventually, I can't take any more and put my fork down with a sense of finality, nudging my plate away from me slightly. Veld is up in a moment, grabbing my plate before I could even think of protesting. He moves around my kitchen with a creepy familiarity, dumping the remainders of my meal in the corner garbage and then dropping the dishes into the sink for cleaning later. Then, he sits back down and stares at me. I look at my hands on the table. He watches me pointedly long enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Once again, I find myself resisting the urge to fidget.

"Well?" he says finally, his hands coming up to rest against the table top too. There's something weirdly candid yet distant about the way he's sitting. I try not to process it.

"Well what?" I reply, sounding, for all intents and purposes like the twenty-two year old boy that he accuses me of being. His chair creaks when he leans back into it but I don't watch him. I feel something brush against my palm, feathers that are there and yet not. I tell myself that there are no birds in Midgar.

"Look kid," Veld says, his voice rasping against my skin, "I can stay here all day. I'm not leaving until you explain what in the Hells was wrong with you last night."

The difference between falling and flying is only the bottom part, I tell myself. Something twitches behind me but I refuse to look. I'm finding it hard to listen, this morning.

"Could you leave please?" I ask but I'm not sure to whom. Veld's chair scrapes and then he's standing, walking, right beside me. He flips me around in my chair and looks down at me – oddly distant; he never touches me, only the arms of the chair that's holding me. There's still a foot of space between us.

"How long has this been going on?" he says in a question that demands an answer. I don't know what I'm looking at. Someone's talking in my ear but it's not something that I know how to listen to.

"Four months," I say, looking sideways. I trail off, distracted.

"Valentine," Veld says and I have to look up. Brown eyes, did I know that before? I push myself back from him and he lets me. In my freedom, I walk to the window. The iron walk is wet – it must've rained last night.

"I see things," I say, watching the empty street below. "I don't know why. I don't know how to make it stop."

"Last night-" Veld starts but stops. I realize that I've clenched my fingers against the counter. I relax them.

"A boy died," I say, "and his parents. I don't know why," I repeat because somehow I want him to understand that I _don't_ understand. I hear him run his fingers through his hair – sometimes I think that I could classify all of his mannerisms. They're the only things that I understand about the man.

Tell me what I should do, Veld. You take care of your Turks, don't you? No, I don't think that I'm being morbid at all.

"How often do you get these –" he stumbles over the word because Veld is a practical man and I'm beginning to think that he hates the supernatural, "visions?"

"Rare at first, more frequent now. Maybe… once every few days," I say and my voice sounds dead to my own ears. Veld puts a hand against the table and I continue to watch the street.

Veld is the person who fixes problems in the unit: funding problems, mission problems, all the crises fall on his shoulders. I heard Lynne talking about it, about what his philosophy is. I wonder if she was trying to be reassuring. They respect Veld. I'm not sure if I know him enough yet. I'm waiting for him to accept the fact that he can't help me. I don't know what to do; he certainly won't either.

"Have you…" and this time I can feel his mouth twist. This he doesn't like at all. "Have you asked about it?"

My fingers twitch against the cupboard because I know exactly what he means when he uses that tone. I look down at my hands and my hair falls in front of my face. Veld's quiet, waiting.

"I can't," I say simply but my voice isn't so detached any more. I know Veld's frowning.

"Why not?" he asks, always the practical one. As if there was a reason. It's simple, really. I don't want to know the answer. That sort of explanation is simply not good enough for Veld Dragoon though.

"Today's an office day," I say, looking up out the window again. The sun is shinning off the water. Everything shimmers. Veld snorts.

"You're calling in sick today kid," he says in a tone that does not expect argument. That makes the corner of my mouth twitch up. I turn to look at him and he looks me up and down again, a habit he has. He knows that I've accepted his proposition, as if there was any doubt. I don't understand the scrutiny until his mouth twists.

"Just, put a fucking shirt on first Valentine," he says before stalking off to the living room. I can't help it; I grin.

Yes sir.

* * *


	6. Sans: Repères

**Author's notes**: I should've posted this a long time ago but... well, here it is. I'm having far too much fun with this story. I'm sure that you'll all be able to tell... things are going to get pretty crazy pretty fast very soon.

And I wasn't over-exaggerating in this. Vincent really did die then and Veld really did watch him. Oh, I wonder why? (evil)

Enjoy.

* * *

Sans: Repères

I walk out of my room with a black nondescript shirt now in place and I see Veld standing alone in my living room. It's feels almost ritualistic in that small room, like there should be candles, salts and strange diagrams. After all, we're going to try and summon something up, aren't we Veld?

My thoughts have been too distracted of late. Perhaps I truly am going mad.

Veld gives me a tight smile, the kind that doesn't reach his eyes. They can look grey to me in some lights even though I know that they are brown. A deep, dark brown. Mine are blue, which I've always found to be rather appropriate. My mother had blue eyes as well.

_There's nothing to fear Vincent. They'd never hurt you, dear. _

Looking at Veld, a man so anchored in his existence, I feel the slight tug of something that I've never had before. I don't know what it is, exactly: a kind of truth and acceptance in the fallibility of things, in the concrete nature of the world and how little we can truly change in it. In one very small, very quick second, I have the vague idea that Veld's just a man, that I'm just a man, and that nothing we do should really matter at all. It's gone almost as quickly as it arrives though. There's no comfort to be had in falsities.

My hand snakes into my pocket and the weight of the knife there is heavy. Veld hides his in his sleeve but I've never seen him use it, not once. He doesn't like getting blood on his fingers.

"Are you alright?" he asks me as if it were a simple question with a simple answer. I nod.

"I'm fine," I say, clearly lying but there's not really much point in telling the truth now, is there? There's that smile again, reassuring in as much as it is false. I smile back, mine mirroring his, and I decide on a spur of the moment to sit down on the floor. I place myself at the edge of the coffee table and look at the black lacquered wood. Veld takes a step back – diagonal, to the right of me. I hold the knife in my left hand.

Somehow I knew that it would come back to this – to the glass in the bathroom and to my mother's dead eyes and to the dust from the street corners. We are all made and defined by our pasts – we live them every day. There's no today, no tomorrow, not even a now: only an extension to everything that came before and everything that will come after. If we could live in harmony with that then perhaps our lives would stop mattering entirely.

Maybe Veld can be my anchor tonight. I would like to come home at the end of this.

I don't feel it at all when the knife cuts me. A cold flurry – have I always been so accustomed to blood? For a moment there is nothing. I just see the cells and the bits of myself that are bleeding away. I watch my blood drip for a moment before pressing my hand low against the dark wood. It's cool against my burning palm – why can't I feel pain anymore? I – the words, they stick in my throat. Distant, I feel Veld standing away from me, watching me. I wish that I could believe that I am safe here but I left all of my choices behind me years ago. There's only this.

I speak. They listen.

Nothing is the same after that.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o. _

Wind, I hear wind.

I open my eyes. I'm in a suit - black not blue - and I'm standing in a wide open field. I know this place. It's an extension of the old plain that still stretches south of Midgar. The grasslands don't look like this anymore though. In my time, the plants always look half-dead, crackling under your feet when you step on them. This place is different. The grass is yellow and green and the soil feels – I don't know, more alive beneath my feet. The wind tugs on the end of my hair, forcing me to look up.

It's the worst storm that I've ever seen. The clouds are grey, such a dark grey they remind me more of the ocean than the sky. The wind is enough to blind me as I try to peer up. I shield my eyes and squint at the sky. I might be imagining it but…

The clouds, they curve upwards, inwards, like trapped whirlwind. Above it there is - no, I can't – there is something dark, darker than those impossible clouds. The wind is screaming but it's not just the wind; something_ below me _is screaming as well. The sound clutches at my heart and I can't see straight. The shrieking echoes inside of me until I think that I'm shouting as well, that I'm dying as well, but that's not it. The non-light falls from the sky and the Planet cries in her pain.

_She fell_, they tell me.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

There are people here with strange sparks in their eyes as if little bits of their souls are peeping out from behind their eyelashes. I have never seen their like. They remind me of SOLDIERS in so much as their eyes are unnatural but where SOLDIERS carry a bit of their deaths behind their corneas these people just have little flecks of life. I hear them murmuring quietly in a language that I don't understand. There's wonder first but for some reason looking at their meetings in their non-homes, I can't help but feel a bit of desperation, a bit of fear creeping in around their edges. Perhaps they just don't understand it yet, I think to myself.

_A Calamity_, my others tell me.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

Wutai. I've never seen this shore before but Veld told me about it once. The grey shores, the endless ocean that is always alive. I've never understand what connection this last free country holds for him. I wonder if he'll ever explain it to me.

There's a man looking at the ocean from the peak of a mountain. A holy man, maybe, or perhaps a warrior. In their society it's often hard to tell the difference. He has sleet grey eyes that remind me of the sea.

_The gods are restless_, he says to the boy who is standing beside him. The child nods, the long black braid flickering by his eyes giving away his age and rank. He's just a child but his eyes are as old and cold as the man's. The others trickle around them.

_Cousins_, they whisper. _They are all cousins. _

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

I hear a woman speaking. At first her tone reminds me of my mother but then I realize that her voice is scratchy and used. The scene clears – an elderly woman is talking to a young girl who is perhaps five years old. The room is nondescript and unimportant. The grandmother, she doesn't have the same spark that I saw in the other people before. This one is certainly human but as I listen to her speak there is something that resonates inside of me. The others creep over her skin, observant. She is telling an old, old story.

_The universe was made by a very old, very lonely god_, she tells the young girl. The child's eyes are like fireflies, bright but flickering. _He was a great, terrible, awesome being who was defeated simply by his age and loneliness. He made the universe but didn't want to live in it, which is why we've forgotten his name._

_Out of the darkness that was the non-Thing of our existence, he created everything. Stars, lakes, people, the lesser gods. He gave everything names. He named that bit flower and that bit tree, that bit ocean and that bit sky. In the end, he had created everything that there was to create, everything that there would ever be to create. He called that corner there Ramuh and that one Shiva, that one Ifrit and that one Leviathan. Bahamut the All-destroyer and Alexander the Lord of Light, he made them all. He filled the void and created Life._

_And when he was done, tired, and truly finished, he realized that there were still small bits left over. Old bits, young bits, like tattered pieces of cloth. The little things waited to have names but the old god had no names left to give. And what is a nameless thing to do? It can't play, can't eat, can't sing because all of those things are named things and the left over pieces had no names at all. They had no love, no hate, no joy, no fear, no pain. They just existed in the same way that all things exist but not in a way that anything had ever existed before. Because of this, the world soon forgot about the little nameless pieces the same way that the old god had forgotten them._

_Now, this might make a human angry or resentful or cheerless but these bits could do none of that. They were a part of everything but separate from it as well. They knew what the sky was, what the birds were, what people, what men and women were. The last remnant old god's power that he left behind when he pulled himself out of the universe, they knew that too. They made it up, were intimately acquainted with it, but were not part of any of it at all. So what, I ask you again, were the little lonely pieces left to do? Nothing but exist, be part of things, and watch everything live and breathe and unfold and die. Not truly a reality, perhaps, but if you're the forgotten corner of the universe, what choice do you have?_

_But, can you imagine child, what it would be like to know what they know, to see what they see, if only they could tell it to us?_

_Mama says that they're not real_, the girl says with all the strength and conviction of a five year old. The old woman laughs and pats the girl's, smiling.

_That's just because your mother got tired of hearing them dear._

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

Lights and they hurt my eyes. At first I think that I'm on stage but then I realize that that's not it. I'm –

_Don't you remember? _A kindly voice asks me in the back of my head. It's not one that I recognize. My hand reaches out. Everything is blue-green. The glass in front of me is smooth.

_You died_, she reminds me. I press my fingers hard against the glass. I see Veld standing beyond me. He –

_Some things in life aren't worth remembering_, the voice tells me with a note that resonates. I – I'm not breathing, am I?

_I told you, you died sweet thing_, she tells me. I pound against the glass. I'd like to call out but –

The mako is sour in my lungs. I choke. I try and breathe and I can't. I –

_… I wonder what he saw, watching you die_

The world falls black around me.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

My back, it's burning. The concrete is hard and unyielding under me. My hands twitch against it. I drag my fingers along it and my nails break. There's blood under them, colouring my fingertips. I can't breathe – the air hurts me. There's rain and it splashes around me. The knife in my back makes it impossible to move. I cough up blood.

Footfalls and I'm trying to drag myself along again. I don't want to die. I –

_You should've known better_, a voice hisses from above me. Someone drives their boot down hard, pushing that knife in. I scream and hack up more blood, convulsing in the alley. The man steps over me, crouches down. His hand shakes when he touches my chin but my eyes are too blurry to see him.

_Good night_¸ he tells me almost fondly. I try to plead with him but –

My throat, slashed out. I'll never speak again.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

There's an old married couple sitting by the fire. Snow is falling down outside their cabin window. The old man rocks, the woman knits. A child plays in the corner, humming tunelessly to himself. The old man stops.

"Gretcha, did you-?"

The woman pauses too and she looks at the door. Suddenly, there is something different in her eyes as if a parlour trick that has faded away. Had I really thought that she was old? There's that – spark is the only word for it.

"Timothy, head out the back door. Run into the woods."

"But-"

"Do what your mother told you, boy," the old man says, standing by the fireplace. The child tenses, looks at his parents and then flees out the back door as told. The woman stands, young and vivacious, and there's fire in her eyes.

"Someone's coming," she says to her husband. He nods and takes a step towards the door. Lightning laces around his fingertips, up his arm.

I suddenly know this man and woman, this child. I know what's going to happen.

The door flies open. Bullets scream but so does something else, something guttural, like an animal caged let loose. Fire flies, lightning crashes but I'd only seen the corpses before. Blood flashes, the sound splits.

The boy dies from exposure to the cold in the woods some time later.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

The smallest of images: a woman, brown hair, outside the cabin days and days and days later. She feels the memory of the place inside her fingertips. She builds three cairns but there are no bodies. I watch her. There are no tears there, only determination.

The spark in her eyes simmers.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

Falling, it's like falling these scenes. I don't know what they are; I don't know what they mean. I bounce between time, between people and things. I don't know what the others are trying to tell me.

_Listen_, they say and I want to shout that I am listening, that they are speaking too quickly, too loudly, but there's always another scene, another life, another death. Icicle, Junon, Midgar, places that I've never seen, never been, places that don't exist anymore. I don't know what they are trying to tell me.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

A girl with stars in her eyes, eyes too green and too pale and too beautiful to be real. I wonder if we've forgotten some of the lesser gods as she holds out her hand to me. I'm frightened of her.

_Something's happening_, she tells me without moving her lips. I blink and in the instant I close my eyelids her form is like a burn on my retina. Something large, frightening, beautiful. There are feathers.

_What's coming?_ I ask her. The girl shakes her head softly – something with scales swishes its tail.

_Can't you hear it?_ She asks me. I shake my head. I want to tell her that I'm only human but then a small, very small part of me remembers that I'm not speaking to this girl – that I'm in my apartment in my living room and that Veld will probably yell at me when I get home again. The girl smiles – something sinister shows its teeth.

_There is no purpose to your being_, she tells me with infinity in her inflection. _Humanity was the last of the old god's creations and they, the ones you listen to, were not even that. The older gods are dying, forgotten, and we wait for rebirth and reckoning. She comes for Retribution, fallen, and you can't hear her. Your purpose is overshadowed by your being and it is the lesser of your selves._

_Then why am I here?_ I ask and it is the first time that I have truly spoken to any of them. That smile stretches – she moves like Leviathan but her wings stretch, something greater, wider that the stars. A serpentine tongue licks perfect, jagged teeth.

_You aren't_, she says.

I wake up.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

Cold, so cold, so cold, I can't breathe. The floor is hard and I – my hands beat, something is hitting me but no –

There's the sound of feet and rushing. I feel someone grab me. I shake uncontrollably. No, I'm convulsing. That's the word, convulsing on the floor. All the words, all the names, I am forgetting them already.

A voice is saying something, my name, but I lean away, hide my face. I retch on the floor – I taste blood in my throat. There's blood on my hands, between my fingers. Why is there so much blood? Why am I bleeding?

I killed a man last night. When his daughter caught me I –

"Valentine."

I'm not really here Veld. I – that girl, she took my soul and –

Hands on my back, rubbing. I try and remember how to breathe.

Please Veld, never make me do that again.

"You'll be alright now kid," I hear him say. I almost laugh. The coughing has made my eyes water. There's a bit of salt mixed in with my blood.

I want to tell him that the sky is falling but I don't know if I'll remember when I wake up. The room's getting dark. I feel – I feel cold. Something changes because Veld's hands stop against my back.

"…Vincent?"

I listen. Something's wrong.

"…Vincent?!"

Ah, that's what it is. My heart has stopped beating.

"Vincent!"

The last thing I feel is the floor against my back and Veld's hands on my chest. I see his face and then nothing at all.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

_This is twice now, child_, a voice tells me. There is white around me. I can't see.

_Mother?_ I ask because I'd always imagined that she would be the one to greet me.

_She's here but you can't see her – not yet. The dead cannot look at the living._

_I'm dead_, I say with a certainty that surprises me. I'd always thought that it would hurt more.

_Do you want to die?_ The kindly voice asks me and I think that it is the most peculiar question.

_I'm not dead?_ I ask to clarify. I hear the rustle of hair – I imagine that the voice belongs to an irate woman that is shaking her head.

_That boy is trying to save you. I can let you walk back into your old body but I made a promise to my cousins. Will you – no, do you wish to die, Vincent Valentine?_

I pause. No one had ever asked me that before. Did I wish to…

Something catches me off guard.

_…I can't hear them here_, I say, looking around for the presences that I had finally lost. I can feel the woman's sad smile.

_No child, no one has a hold here but me. Will you stay with me?_

_Do you want me to?_ I ask to this voice that I feel has never meant me harm and that I know I've heard before. There is a bit of light in her voice when she speaks again.

_You're all my children_, she tells me kindly,_ and children always come home eventually._

_A place to come home to… _I say, testing the phrase on my tongue. I feel the woman waiting. She has promised me a choice.

_Your purpose is overshadowed by your being and it is the lesser of your selves_, a voice says but only in my memory. Something flutters beyond my reach, an idea that I've never been able to hold in my hand. Like a paper butterfly it crumples when I touch it.

_… I'd like to go home, please_, I say, sure that she'll understand me. A sigh like a breath of air.

_Be careful, child_, she tells me and then I'm falling again.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o. _

Air like I've never tasted before. My lungs had never hurt so fiercely. I lurch up and cough convulsively, my fingers covering my mouth. I feel hands gripping my shoulders and then I open my eyes to see the man who's grabbing me. I've never seen his eyes look so tight, so worried.

"I'm," I pause to cough and Veld loosens his hands a bit, maybe afraid that he's hurting me. My eyes slip down to his chest but then back up to his face. "I'm alright now," I say, around my palm. Veld's eyes are flat for a moment before he speaks.

"Never do _anything _like that again Valentine," he tells me. I can't help but grin and Veld's smile is slower - part ferocious and part familiar. I open my mouth to say something more but then another coughing fit hits me and I slump forward, my head hitting Veld's shoulder. He tenses but then relaxes, one of his hands going to my back again and the other propping my shoulder up.

"You'll be okay kid," he tells me and I smile even though he can't see it. He might not be right but at least right now, in this moment, I feel that it's true.

This time, when I hear the wings, I know who's speaking.

_Good-bye, little girl_, I say in my mind. She smiles.

_They all flutter down in the end. Protect you life, Vincent Valentine. My cousin won't always be so caring._

_Please, tell Death that I say thank you._

_She can hear you just as easily as I can. Guard yourself. _

And then she's gone as well.

"Did you get any answers?" I hear Veld ask, bringing me back to the place that I'd returned to.

"I…." I pause a moment. "I have no idea," I say honestly. My cough is a little bit weaker this time and his hand on my back feels more like a reassurance then anything else. I wait for Veld to speak again, my eyes feeling heavy and my head feeling full.

"It was the best we could do," he says finally. I nod tiredly against his shoulder.

"Yes it was," I reply.

After that, a blackness took me but it was of a lesser kind, just a sleep that I needed. I don't remember dreaming of anything but I swear that I heard wing beats all night long.

* * *


	7. Sans: Histoire

**Author's Notes**: I just really love the beginning of this chapter. I think that it's my favourite part thus far.

The language that Veld uses in this really just amounts to me playing with sounds. I only speak two languages and Veld's Wutaian is pretty far from my French.

Enjoy.

* * *

Sans: Histoire

When I wake up I'm not pressed up against Veld in the living room, full of dreams of death and dying. Instead, I'm lying down on the couch with my face turned and pressed against it. A grey blanket is wrapped up against my shoulders and I don't wonder at the kindness.

I sit up slowly, listening to the dull sounds of the empty room. Quiet. The city is only ever a distant murmur here and on a night like tonight I can almost imagine that I really am alone beyond these four walls.

Resolutely, I place my bare feet against the cool floor. I shiver and wonder vaguely if I've caught a fever. No headache this time at least.

I cock my head and listen a moment longer. Nothing. Just silence. The others are quiet this morning. I can't help but wonder if it has exhausted them as well, this breach of silence. I know that I should be more disturbed by it all but, truthfully? I can't bring myself to be. My mood is subdued and oppressive. The walls of my apartment breathe around me. In the quiet, I don't feel anything at all.

I walk away from the couch and into the kitchen. Without realizing it I know what I'm looking for. Or whom, rather. I'm looking for the man who saved my life last night but it doesn't appear that he's here anymore. Gone again. Rather appropriate, that. The thought makes the corner of my mouth quirk up. I can't imagine that he's pleased with me.

If you knew Veld – I've never met a man more solid man in my life. A rock to ground us and chisel us away. I have no idea what has prompted his intrusion into my life but I can't help but feel that it's temporary. Attaching the title of saviour to his unresponsive chest seems more than slightly ironic. He's a man that has made me very good at killing things. It occurs to me, sometimes, that I would've very much liked to have met the man who made _him_. He died of course, long before my time. But that doesn't mean that I don't know his name.

In the kitchen, the night falls in pale blue. Just a slight bit of sunset still touches the horizon. It's that strange time where the sun doesn't know that it's night yet and the moon is still too timid to rise. Had I truly slept so long?

There's no Veld in this room either. No need to check the bedroom of course. Those rooms are like temples: as simple and as profane. Veld is nothing if not polite.

Gone then.

With a thought, I walk into my room and without hesitation head into the en-suite bathroom. I feel more ill-used than anything else. Death has taken on a new simplicity for me and I want to get clean again.

… The girl with wings had smiled at me, foreign and dangerous like slivers of ice in a Midgarian alley. She reminded me of him, a little. Just around the eyes. They – they could've almost been cousins.

_o.o.o.o.o.o_

Heat is an amazing thing. It cleans as it burns, cauterizing everything. When the body is plagued by invasive creatures, it broils; the fever induced to burn all the toxins away.

Heat can kill as well as heal. I once saw a man raving with fever, his cure becoming the cause that led to his death.

Still, I think that there will always be something comforting about hot water hitting the base of my neck, my shoulder blades, running down my chest, my hair damp and clinging wet around me, the room transformed – just for a moment - into a place of clouds and bits of steam. Like a lover that hasn't died yet.

Eventually that tap shuts off and the water stops. Nothing left to do but dry off and keep on living, bit by bit.

It probably should be a surprise when I walk out of the bedroom – fully dressed but running a towel through my hair – to see him sitting at my kitchen table, cradling a cup of tea in his hands. It should be but it isn't. Maybe I've been waiting for him ever since I woke up alone tonight.

"Hello Veld," I say, my inflection feeling distant. Maybe it really was a fever. What was my body trying to burn away? He doesn't smile when he looks at me and I see flecks of grey in his eyes. Cousins I'd thought and surely I hadn't been wrong. Clearly, it's going to be one of those nights.

He gestures to the chair in front of him with an open hand and I take it that I have permission to sit in my own home. Something reminds me of sanctuary and the connotations that it used to have. You need to ask for it, don't you?

I sit down with this man and place my hands on the table in front of him. He waits a minute before reaching out to pass me the cup of tea that he has made for me as well. Green tea that smells very faintly of jasmine. I hide my smile. I know for a fact that I have no such tea in my house.

Without prompting, I begin to tell him what I know. He listens weightily and the disconnection that I felt earlier resonates in these empty walls. A tiny dot of a man sits across from me and he hears me as I tell him my stories. The tea goes cold in my hands.

_o.o.o.o.o.o_

It was always times like these where Veld had to remind himself that Valentine was clearly insane, which of course was not to say that he did not believe him. On the contrary. Valentine, in all the time that Veld had known him, had once never lied outright to him; not once. Avoided the truth, yes; refused to give answers, yes; been deviant and opaque and infuriating, yes. But lied? No. Never. It was one of the many strange aspects of his personality that Veld had yet to understand. The man was almost compulsive that way.

So, when he recounted dispassionate stories of deaths in alleyways and wutaian warrior-priests, of creationism and people with stars in their eyes, Veld had no choice but to believe him. And it didn't solve anything.

Eventually, when the boy ran out of stories Veld mulled over what he had told him. There was one thing that had stood out.

"The girl that you talked to, did she have a name?"

Vincent frowned.

"No, why?"

Veld thought in silence for a moment before speaking.

"It reminded me of something," he said, trailing off. Vincent waited and Veld shook his head slightly. "It's an old wutaian legend. Hardly anyone remembers it anymore. The old wutaian pantheon was a lot less exclusive than the one they codified after the Reformation. They used to tell stories about all the old gods: Leviathan, Ramuh, Alexander, Phoenix. Essentially, even though they viewed Leviathan as the All-Father and creator god, their myths weren't mutually exclusive. Your girl – she reminds me of one of their older legends."

He paused again and Vincent shifted in his seat. It occurred to him then that Veld was probably the kind of person that was used to reading stories, not telling them. The older man sighed and ran a hand through his hair, thinking.

"There were the greater gods and goddesses and then the lesser ones. The great ones we all remember – the lesser ones have been more or less forgotten. Your girl – wings and serpent's tail, right? The Wutaians used to tell a story about a day that Leviathan tricked Pheonix into bedding him – something about swallowing the sun in the sea. It was one of those old myths designed to explain some aspect of nature. Leviathan and Pheonix created the horizon then, melding the sky and the sea together… it's funny but the more important part was almost a footnote. They had a daughter and named her Moment – one of the lesser gods. It Wutaian, a name for a god is the god. Leviathan is actually a mistranslation. Leviathan in Midgarian is a general name for an ocean serpent but in Wutaian it's _Levviactan_; sea-god-snake. Moment was _Marimuato_, which means a pause between instants. So, she was everything and nothing. In Wutaian culture, ambiguity is a kind of power. They used to say: _Ica ni hariata Marimuato_ – everything lives and dies in Moment."

Veld frowned and looked down a moment, brown hair falling a bit in front of his eyes. Vincent's frown mirrored his.

"… You aren't saying something Veld," he accused, his voice soft but his eyes hard. The corner of Veld's mouth quirked up.

"Unpredictable things are also dangerous things in wutaian culture Valentine."

Vincent was quiet a moment before shaking his head ruefully. He looked up at Veld and there was a bit of light in his eyes.

"… What's one more?"

To that, Veld couldn't help but laugh.

_o.o.o.o.o.o_

You stayed later than I would've thought tonight, Veld. We went through two pots of tea – not quite talking but not being silent either. I don't understand it. I don't know what has changed. Two weeks ago, I was sure that…

Perhaps it's that. _Ica ni hariata Marimuato_. Everything can _change_ in a moment, is that what you were trying to tell me Veld? I have a feeling that you never speak outright. Or perhaps you weren't trying to tell me anything at all. I don't know and I don't understand.

Sojiro came out to see me after you left. I'm sure that if you'd met him, you would've caught the reference in his name. There is little that escapes you when it comes to that island. Yet another thing that I don't understand.

I've heard you use their phrases more than once, you know. I catch them and I don't understand. Once it was _mariyu no hari meka_. Another sounded vaguely like _itsubi no yamano_. It's not your native tongue – I know that – so why do your words sound more effortless in it, more fluid? I just don't understand.

I'm tired Veld and the house feels empty again now that you're gone. Sojiro is sitting on my lap in the living room and the apartment is dark. It will be daybreak soon. I confess that I have no desire to sleep tonight. I have no need for monsters or Moments right now. Sometimes, I just want to be awake when I'm sleeping. Or sleeping when I'm awake maybe; I'm not sure.

The apartment is too cold tonight. If I shiver it's only partly from that. I can – yes, I can hear them talking, just outside of my reach. I feel like my breath should be fogging in the pre-dawn air. It's that cold – but it isn't really, is it? No, it isn't.

A hand runs its fingers through Sojiro's fur over and over again and I wait impatiently for morning to come.

* * *


	8. Sans: Crescendo

**Author's notes**: I'm a bad pirate. I wrote this in _May_. May! I forgot about it shortly afterwards and promptly forgot all about it. Thankfully, I'm up to chapter 10 in my writing journal. God willing, there will be multiple updates here soon.

Vincent is a really fucking weird kid to write first person. I had a general idea where this chapter was supposed to go but then Vincent - got angry. I think that the title is appropriate.

The next chapter is my favourite out of all of them. I'm just saying.

Enjoy.

* * *

Sans: Crescendo

It's the sunlight that wakes me in the morning, sharp and bright coming in from my living room window. I groan a little and shield my eyes with my left arm. I have to shift to relieve a kink that has appeared in the base of my neck. It's apparently my reward for sleeping on the couch.

It hadn't really been pleasant. There'd been nightmares but that's to be expected – it's impossible not to have nightmares when I fall asleep listening to them mutter. Thankfully, they didn't make it into the morning; I can't remember them now. There was something like the sound of wind - but larger - and something very dark; a snarl and jagged teeth snapping… but that's all.

In truth, I never try to remember my dreams or nightmares. It's easier to just let them fade in the morning.

There's a light headache pushing at the edge of my temples that makes me groan a bit as I pull myself up off the couch. Asprin, a hot shower, and then work.

I'll have to feed Sojiro before I leave.

_.o.o.o.o.o._

Most Turks have their own cars that they take in to work in the morning but, truthfully, I prefer taking the train. It's grungy and old and sways a little bit too much on the tracks but somehow I find it… comfortable.

The city looks small from up here, the gaps in the Plate revealing all the sub levels of people below. People on top of people on top of people. Still, the sun is warm and bright today and there are very few clouds in this midgarian sky. The metalwork of the Plate looks familiar and known to me through the dusty and dirty glass of the train's windows. I sway along, following the tracks on my way to work.

Quiet today. The sounds of the engine and the click clack of the train are the only things I hear.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

Mikel is the first one I meet on the floor this morning. He's the younger of the two others, with curly blonde hair that brushes his shoulders and bright green eyes. He's small and thin, almost six inches shorter than I am. He is possibly one of the most cheerful people that I've come across in my time. I confess that he has grown on me.

"Good morning, Vincent!" he says as I walk past the Turk common lounge. I pause, being polite, and smile very slightly at him.

"… Good morning, Mikel," I say. He holds up the pot of coffee that he was pouring a cup from, his smile wide enough to slit his eyes.

"Want a cup?" he asks me. On a spur of the moment decision I nod and walk into the lounge.

"Mika!" A woman's voice calls and Mikel tenses. I hide my smirk behind my newly acquired coffee mug. Lynne – the woman – walks into the room. She's imposing – shorter than me but only by three inches or so, making her tall for a woman. She wears her brown hair pulled back in a very tight ponytail, probably because she'd likely look rather alluring with it down on her shoulders. Broad-chested in a slightly masculine way with light brown eyes and high cheek bones, she's always struck me as a woman who dislikes her feminity but is not beyond, perhaps, having a few heeled shoes in the back of her closest 'just in case'.

She and Mikel form an interesting dynamic in this unit. I enjoy watching them together. It helps that Lynne is four years Mikel's senior.

"… Yes, Lynne?" he asks, not quite hiding the slight tensing in his shoulders. I smirk behind my coffee cup. Lynne places her hands on her hips.

"You didn't fill out your H7I form after the debriefing yesterday."

"It was 4 am!"

Lynne snorts.

"Yeah, well, I just got bitched out by Veld because our mission was 'incomplete'. I filled out the last one – you can deal with it. Go talk to the old man before he explodes or something."

I smirk a little as Mikel growls something into the base of his coffee cup before draining the rest of his liquid. It sounds vaguely like 'prissy' and 'workaholic' and a few other choice phrases. I purposefully tip my coffee cup back further so that Lynne won't notice. She does of course and cocks an eyebrow at me.

"Well look at you, Mr. Valentine," she teases, shaking a finger at me. "You're in a good mood this morning."

"…Do you think so?" I ask, my monotone not quite successful. She laughs.

"Gods, you're practically chipper. Got drunk and laid last night on your 'sick day'?" she asks, grabbing the pot of coffee and pouring herself a liberal cup. I snort and hide my mouth with my cup again. Lynne looks up at me from under her eyelashes.

"Yeah, probably not," she says simply, leaning against the counter between us and smirks up at me. "It's good to see you out here like this, you know. You work too frickin' hard – you're a lot like the Chief. You're gonna get old before your time if you keep it up, Vincent. You need to cut loose a little."

I can't help but smile against the rim of my mug.

"… Afraid that I'll show you up, Lynne?" I ask and the older woman laughs out loud.

"Shiva, kid, did you just make a joke? Because I could've sworn you did. Have all the Hells frozen over? Is the sea boiling yet?" Lynne shakes her head and laughs at her own joke. I just smile.

"Vincent?" I hear Mikel again and I turn to look at him standing in the room's entrance way. I nod and Mikel scratches the back of his head. "Veld wants to see you," he says and I can't help but frown.

"'Bout what Mika?" Lynne ask, her body twisting to face the younger man.

"Dunno," he says, to the woman standing in front of me. "He didn't say."

I nod even though the boy hadn't been talking to me. I down the last of my coffee and put the mug back down on the countertop.

"Thank you, Mikel," I say, walking past the boy. He smiles nervously at me as I go.

"Um, yeah. No problem Vincent."

As I walk down the hall to Veld's office I smile as I hear those two pipe up again.

"Gods, way to kill a mood Mika. He was smiling."

"Was he?"

"Yeah – I mean, gods."

I can't help but chuckle to myself as I walk my way down to Veld's door.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

I don't think that I've ever walked into Veld's office and not seen him working. He's always taping at his computer or reading a file or speaking to someone curtly over his phone. He's never just sitting when he's alone in his office. If he were anyone else I would assume that he was putting on airs, trying to pretend that he's more productive than he is. But this is Veld Dragoon.

This time Veld is sitting at his desk, leafing through a folder. The paperwork that gets processed in this building is a remarkable thing. The truly perturbing thing about Shinra is not what it does – it's the methodical way in which it does it. Somewhere, a low level bureaucrat will stamp the form that Mikel just filled out, signing off on someone's death or kidnapping or ruin. Men and women are bought and sold nine to five in this building. Oddly enough, I'm glad that I'm the one performing the acts. I find it hard to picture myself as the middle-class man who signs death warrants by day and eats his wife's casseroles at night.

Sometimes I wonder what brought Midgar to this state of being. I would've liked to have seen this place fifty years ago, when mako stayed in the ground and the districts of this once-town had names. Before the Plate existed.

… People on top of people on top of people.

Veld glances up at me and I don't wait for permission to sit down. The corner of his mouth twitches down. Did you catch that, Veld?

He watches me a moment too long before glancing down at the page at in front of him. I don't really like how he doesn't always look at me when he talks to me.

"How are you today, kid?"

If I hesitate a moment before speaking it's not because I'm picking my words carefully. It's because the question is a bit like grating nails on a whiteboard; it jars my teeth and I have to swallow something unpleasant before I speak.

"I'm fine, thank you."

My voice comes out unusually cold. Veld looks up. I hate how selective he is when he notices me.

He watches me longer than could ever be considered polite. I don't look away the way I once might have. Sometimes I wonder vaguely what happened to that other person. There was a time before this one – but they all blur together now.

Eventually he looks down at his file again. His eyes move but I doubt he's reading.

"You shouldn't be so polite, Valentine," Veld finally mutters. I frown.

"Excuse me?"

Veld looks up at me there.

"Like that, just there. You don't have to be so polite. Just say what you want to say. It doesn't always have to be 'I'm fine, thank you'. I'm not asking because I'm being polite. I'm asking because I need to know. If you can't be honest then we can't work together."

His mouth is a line when he talks and there's no emotion in his eyes. Veld taught me that face – it's to hide what you're thinking. I can't quite help grinding my teeth.

"What exactly would you rather me say?"

My voice is lower than I wanted it to be but my hands are unusually still. Maybe my body's trying to keep me from moving.

Stay still.

Veld leans back in his chair.

"The truth would be a nice start."

The side of my mouth turns up; I can't help it. Some younger version of my self wouldn't have had reason to be bitter. He doesn't even see the irony.

This time I'm the one who looks down but it's mostly because I don't want him to see my eyes. My half-smile stretches a bit.

"Veld, this doesn't go away for me. You may see me when it's convenient for you to take an interest but no matter your question, my answer will always be the same. I don't particularly feel like satisfying your conscience today."

I look up and Veld is studying me too closely to be polite or comfortable. I meet his stare – I've lost the part of me that would flinch at a look like that. Veld's face is a blank mask but I wasn't expecting anything else.

"Well," he says finally, only the barest hint of something creeping into his tone, "I suppose that was honest."

His right hand slides the file he'd been glancing at across his desk to me. In a practiced motion I flip it around on the desk and look down.

"What's the mission?" I ask, because someone has trained me to be a very good Turk. Veld's smirk creeps into his tone.

"Can't you read kid?"

I don't rise to the bait but scan the pages in front of me. When I frown, Veld feels entirely too self-satisfied. I look up to see his tight grin.

"You're with me this time, Valentine."

* * *


	9. Sans: Remords

**Author's notes**: Writing a mission from a first-person perspective is hella-hard. Especially when your character is Vincent-frickin'-Valentine. He's always a little bit dizzying.

This chapter is _full_ of unpleasant things. Both violence and child-abuse. There's a reason why I have this story rated at 'R'. If these things bother you, I suggest that you don't read this.

Also? I find men who can drive standard well incredibly sexy. But that's just me. -wink-

Enjoy.

* * *

Sans: Remords

_"A child molester?" _

_"Does that bother you, Valentine?" _

_"No, I'm just wondering why we care. This is fairly common, so far as I understand." _

_"Did you read the name on file?" _

_"Silvana Urquhart. What – wait, not _that_ Urquhart." _

_"Do you honestly think that we'd care if it wasn't?" _

_"So the General's daughter has been kidnapped." _

_"And likely worse than that. We need to bring her back." _

.o.o.o.o.o.o.o. 

Veld drives through the streets like he owns them, taking the curves so smoothly that I can hardly feel him shift gears. I hadn't even known that people still drove using standard. It seems like the kind of stubborn thing he'd do.

Veld makes a sound in the back of his throat and glances over at me.

"You're being too quiet, Valentine," he says simply, his voice flat. I watch him a moment before speaking, trying to judge what's best to say.

"I'm trying to understand," I answer briefly. Veld snorts.

"Self-reflection?" he says, his tone clearly despairing of the idea. I shake my head and look out the window, quiet for a moment as I try to gather my thoughts. I'm not always used to explaining myself to other people.

The vaguest part of me wonders why I'm bothering now.

"Do we only see the worse parts of this city?" I muse quietly. "Is it really all petty gang members and child molesters?"

"There are some good people," Veld says simply, keeping his eyes on the road. I frown.

"Our target's been known to the police. Likely guilty of four counts of what we're going to kill him for. He's a petty criminal, a small-time gang leader. When this man dies, there'll be another to take his place. These men, they persist." I glance over at Veld again. "What are we doing here, Veld? You and I, in this city, right now?"

Veld makes a short sound that can barely be classified as amused. An ironic smile touches his mouth.

"We're protecting the interests of the Shinra Electric Company, kid. Just enjoy it. They don't let us play hero too often."

I shake my head and go back to looking out the window.

"It's irrelevant," I mutter, watching the roads fly by. Veld makes a disgusted noise.

"Not to that girl, it isn't."

That forces me to look at him again. Veld keeps his eyes on the road for a while before speaking. I wonder if he sometimes has to gather his thoughts because he's unused to explaining himself to others as well.

"There are three that things I really hate, Valentine. People who hate just based on race, men who hurt women without reason, and the sick fucks who prey on small children."

When he turns to look at me again, I nod and lean back into my seat. He's made his point.

"…Children should be allowed to be children," I say eventually. Veld nods.

"Exactly."

He glances over to look at me again.

"Will you be alright during this?"

My smile is tight.

"You can trust me, Veld."

He snorts.

"Well, we'll see." He pauses and glances over again. "I'll take point," he says, the statement having the vaguest connotation of a question. I nod.

"I'll have your back then."

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

We arrive at our destination at the precise time Veld had outlined in my briefing. The man runs his missions like an accountant taking care of a client's finances; all balance and checks. He's almost compulsive in his perfection. I asked Lynne about it once and she'd shrugged.

_If something goes wrong on a mission, it's always bad. Veld doesn't like that._

I hadn't needed to ask for details, of course. I know how my vacancy happened.

Veld catches my eye before we leave the car and there's a mask of professionalism there that's ten meters thick. I know that I have something similar on my face as well. It's instinctive; I can't control it.

We leave the sedan parked two blocks from our objective. We're in the Sector Four industrial district. Our target hasn't even bothered to hide down in the slums. His arrogance will very soon to be the death of him.

My heart beats faster. There's a hint of violence in the air that makes my fingers itch. Veld glances back at me from where he's walking one step in front of me.

_Steady, rookie_. Don't worry, Veld. I know.

We estimate that the target – Andrews is his name but 'target' sits more soundly in our vocabulary – has at least six of his lackeys with him. He never takes part in his forays alone.

We don't know if he realizes who he's captured. We doubt it. If he had even the smallest concept of the ramifications, he would've fled the city by now. Since he hasn't…

Since he hasn't, he has to die.

It's a kind of thrum; I can feel it. The death that's lurking. It makes my heart race.

Veld's right hand is flexing and relaxing; flexing and relaxing. I've seen that motion before.

The location is a semi-abandoned shipping company. It's between owners right now. In certain plate districts, the Slums surge up like a tide. This is one such place. The buildings are starting to decay. It's the acid in the rainwater, here.

We'll enter by the old truck loading yards. Even if there are ten, twelve men, they won't be able to harm us.

The mako in my blood is singing.

After the logistics, the mission becomes extremely simple. Kill as many men as possible, take the target alive, retrieve the girl. He'll probably be up high in the building somewhere. He likes his privacy after his conquests.

Gods, how can we know so much about these men and …

But that's not important right now. I can feel the holsters at my chest. I have a spare in my right pant leg too; Veld's the same but I know that he keeps knives up his sleeve as well.

Mine thumps against my hip in my pocket in an off-beat pattern. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

In the smallest, animal level I can hear them growling. This is what I promised them when I gave Veld my hand. I hadn't known what it meant then. Perhaps I still don't.

We turn a corner and we see our location. The building has half of its windows broken. Plain, unimposing. I scan the roof. No men; no snipers.

They're sloppy.

There are men on the central loading dock. It's alright. We've anticipated that. One glances at the other and they exchange words. Veld and I don't slow.

One shouts out something at us. Veld reaches under his jacket and I smile.

He goes left and I go right, firing as we move. The men are all shouting now. Someone screams and I laugh, shooting as I run. Their bullets explode on pavement, chipping it away.

One man falls and something roars in my head.

Veld's at the deck first. One man raises his weapon and Veld ducks, elbowing him hard in the ribs. He spins and uses the man as a shield and his partner laces him with bullets.

When the man needs to reload, Veld drops the corpse and shoots him square in the head.

He pivots to meet the man who's raised his weapon at him but I'm there now. I bring the butt of my gun down on his collarbone, breaking it. He crumbles in a cry and I shoot him in his face.

I have a gun in both of my hands – I don't remember my second draw but I shoot to the left without looking. A man falls.

Veld twists to take a man from behind.

We both turn to finish the last one.

There's quiet a moment before Veld brushes off his suit and walks over to where I'm standing. He glances at the corpse at my feet, its face just a ruined mass of bloodied pulp.

"If you're close enough to break a man's collarbone, Valentine, you're more than close enough to shoot him. Don't waste time and energy being fancy. We aren't here for showmanship."

"Would the definition of showmanship include using a man as a human shield instead of diving behind the metal cracks that are just to the left of you?"

Veld glances to the offensive objects and smirks

"Did you just correct me, rookie?"

"Perhaps you should take more stock of your surroundings."

"Look, Valentine-"

There's the sound of metal scrapping and we both turn, firing together. A man gurgles and lays silent again.

"Stay dead," Veld says reflexively. I smirk.

"Shut up, Valentine," he says without looking back at me. He looks at his watch.

"Let's finish this," he mutters. I can't help but grin.

I feel as though we may be ahead of schedule by one or two minutes.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

There are more men in the building but they die as we go. To the left, to the right; it doesn't matter. We move in synchrony; I've been taught this. I don't watch the front and Veld doesn't watch his back.

The quiet when our last shell falls tells me what I need to know.

"It's just Andrews now," I say quietly. Veld doesn't seem surprised by my certainty. I'm sure that he can feel it to. He nods.

"He'll be up one more level," he says simply. City logic – the highest place for the highest person. I nod.

We take the stairs but do not run.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

He shoots at us when we open the door. It's expected. We roll away. He falls and I know where Veld's hit him. The inside of the thigh; impossible to move with that.

When I stand, I take out his shoulder; he screams as the bullet lodges in there. There won't be any more shots at us.

Veld stands first, brushing dust off his pants. I stand as well, automatically scanning the room. It's almost completely empty. A desk and a chair. There are windows that look out at the loading dock below and half of them have been broken. I scan the surrounding rooftops. Nothing and there are no doors in the room.

We'd both been right. Andrews is the last one.

Veld walks up to him dispassionately and looks down. With an artistic flair, he grinds his heel into the target's shoulder. He screams in a most satisfying way.

Veld smirks and squats down to his level.

"Where's the girl?" he asks simply, that mask of professionalism perfect. Andrews grins and there's blood in his teeth.

"Dead," he says, laughing. Veld sighs and levels his gun. He shoots Andrews in his other leg.

I walk around the scene. Veld's in the center of the room. I can feel the blood seeping into the floorboards. Their words lap at me. There's another shot.

I glance at windows but the answer isn't in the glass. There's something…

"Veld," I say quietly. He glances at me, his eyes foreign in the moment. He doesn't speak.

I walk forward towards them and squat down to look in Andrews eyes. From the corner of mine, I can see the hole that Veld's put in his hand. Appropriate.

I grab his throat and twist his head so that he has to look at me. He gurgles as I put pressure on his windpipe.

"You never bury their bodies," I whisper, my words coming out as a hiss. Andrew's good hand goes to my fingers and so I tighten my grip. I can feel Veld watching me but I ignore him. I growl low in my throat.

"Where did you put her?" I say. His fingers scratch at mine.

Veld sighs and puts his muzzle to Andrew's liver. He pulls the trigger.

The convulsion echoes up into my hand and I draw back. I look at Veld. The man already knows that he's going to die. If they don't speak by the third bullet, we need to be creative.

Veld pulls out the cure materia from his bangle. He holds it in front of Andrews' eyes.

"Do you know what this is?" he asks softly. Andrews' eyes widen.

"You won't die," I promise him kindly. I stand and grind my heel into his liver and he screams again. Veld stands, dusting his pants off. We exchange a look.

His hands flex and I glance at them. There's a tremor in my head that's getting louder. This blood is contagious. I look up to catch the edge of Veld's frown. Without explanation I turn and head back to where I'd been standing by the wall.

Veld smirks and speaks to our target in candid tones.

"Valentine's the crazy one. He's also a little impatient." He cocks his head. "Change your mind."

"... Fuck … you … Turk," Andrews mutters between clenched teeth. Veld makes an aristocratic noise and puts a bullet in the man's other hand.

I watch the scene impassively from where I'm standing. Veld looks – like Veld but a kind of Veld that I've never seen before. I've fought with him while training but never on a mission.

Something twitches at my shoulder and I glance sideways. I feel like I've been in this room before but I know that I haven't.

The blood is still seeping into the floorboards. They'll never get the stains out.

_The man works with the nails first; one cuts his finger._

I catch myself against the wall. I twist to see Veld but he hasn't turned to look at me. I shudder.

_The Princess in the corner is crying again. Pretty – pretty. _

Just a bead of blood on his finger. 

"Veld," I say quietly. He doesn't turn and so I push myself up, walking over again. I look down at the man at my feet.

_Down, down; the good children stay quiet._

Andrews had been moaning but he stops when he looks at my face. He looks…

"Valentine?" Veld asks, that mask still perfectly in place for everyone who isn't me. I catch the note. Perhaps I do know this man.

I look at him sideways.

"Can you help me please, Veld?"

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

Andrews becomes more and more agitated as we work, rocking against the floor and blubbering nonsense. I don't think that it's the blood that has made him mad. He likely always was.

It takes us some time to find the loose floor boards. They're on the opposite side of the room, almost mockingly placed close to where the sun would fall from the windows. When Veld realizes what we've found, he twists to glare at Andrews' prostrate form.

"Help me with her," I ask him quietly. He swallows and nods.

We pull her out together. She's smaller than I would've expected but it's hard to tell with the bruises. She moans quietly when we move her. We lay her down so that her head's resting on my knees. Veld sits across from me.

"It's alright now, sweetheart," Veld says quietly and I look at him. He doesn't return the glance. The girl shivers but doesn't open her eyes. I frown and brush a bit of hair out of her face. It's dry with caked blood.

"We'll take you home," I promise. When I don't get a response, Veld leans in to check her pulse.

"Erratic," he says quietly. He pulls out his cure materia again and considers the child in front of him.

"Never been very good at this," he mutters.

I can feel a bit of the cure spell when he casts it, its warm glow enveloping the girl's tiny form. Its magic's like a quiet murmur against my skin. With the acidic smell of the blood in the air, it makes me feel dizzy.

When it's done, Veld leans in and check's the girls pulse again. He nods and sits back up straight again. We exchange a glance.

"Just a hunch," I say quietly. Veld looks unimpressed and so I add, "He seemed like the type to keep trophies. You said that they never found any of the other girls."

Veld still seems unsure but he nods eventually. I look at the girl on the floor. She's only sleeping now. Some of her bruises have faded.

I exchange one more glance with Veld before I stand, taking the girl up into my arms. She's light but she shifts when I move her. I have to be careful of her ribs; some feel broken.

Veld leads me to where Andrews is lying. He's dying, we both know. Still, we never leave things unfinished, as just as it might feel to let him suffer.

Veld doesn't bother with any dramatics this time. He just draws and pulls the trigger.

He leads the two of us out of the building and down the two blocks to the car. I sit in the back with the girl and he takes us home.

She murmurs quietly as we drive and I tell her the things you tell children. I don't remember the words now.

* * *


	10. Sans: Responsabilité

**Author's Notes**: I'm not quite sure what to say about this chapter. It's probably one of my favourites. A little bit more Veld-centric; in a way. I have to confess that it's a little bit delightful to look at a character using the first person pov of _someone else_.

Enjoy.

* * *

Sans: Responsabilité 

We take the girl to a Shinra-sponsored hospital and notify her family as soon as we know that she's going to live.

A young girl in a hospital bed swamped by her two parents. Watching them, I can't decide what I feel. Veld stands with me by the door looking into her room.

"We're done here, Valentine," he says, not unkindly. I nod and he leads me away.

Twelve hours later, we stand in the President's office. He has a tendency to pace when he's annoyed.

This is not exactly what I had expected for our debriefing.

"Urquhart just handed me a letter of resignation, Dragoon. He's gone fucking soft and retired on me. Needs to take care of family business or something."

"His six year old daughter was raped and left for dead, sir."

The President gives Veld a long, dark look. Turks have a lot of leeway in the department … but not that much.

"Do you think I don't know that, Dragoon?"

"Not at all, sir. I'm simply saying that if the General has become unstable, his usefulness to the company is likely greatly reduced."

The President chortles and glances irately at a file on his desk. When he looks up, he glares at me instead of Veld.

"He's a damned cold fish, isn't he, your boss?"

I resist the urge I have to glance over at Veld. I clear my throat instead.

"He's an admirable Turk, sir."

"Aren't they fucking all."

The President slaps his heavy file back down on his desk and directs his attention back to Veld.

"If you two had done your job and rescued the damn girl, none of this would've happened."

"Sir, the man had been known to the police. He was a repeat offender. Apparently, he would abduct girls and abuse them –"

"I know exactly how it worked Dragoon! I'm not one of your underlings! I flat out will not tolerate you lecturing me!"

Veld doesn't move from his position in front of the President. I'm finding it harder and harder to keep looking straight ahead. The President is red-faced and livid. Nothing shows on Veld's face, that mask firmly in place and unshakable.

I'm not truly here, I think. These men have fought before; they will fight again. I'm only here in passing.

"Sir," Veld says, his tone soft but devoid of emotion. "The doctors estimate the damage to the girl's system –"

"Shut up, Dragoon."

"- likely occurred less than twenty-four hours ago. He raped her the moment he had her. There was never anything -"

"Dragoon!"

"- that we could do."

The President's hands clench at the edge of his desk, his eyes livid. Veld keeps the same, impassively cool face. After a moment, the President straightens and walks deliberately towards us. He stops when he's directly in front of Veld.

Faster than I would've been expected, he reaches forward and grabs the knot of Veld's tie, pulling his head down to his level. I see it tighten around his neck but Veld doesn't flinch.

My feet make me step out sideways to face the two men and my hand reaches under my jacket but it stops there. Veld doesn't glance in my direction.

"I own you, Veld Dragoon. When I give you an order, you follow it through. You should've just shot the damn kid and been done with it. Now you've cost me one of my best men. The Wutaians will be pissing themselves with laughter. I want you to go back out there and take care of both of them. I will not be made a laughing stock by some disgusting slums trash! If Urquhart can't work for me then he'll die. Do you understand me, Dragoon?"

Veld's eyes are icy but he manages to keep them from narrowing. I frown. I could've almost sworn that I saw Veld's hands tremble. He balls them into fists.

"Perfectly, sir."

The President lets go of Veld almost as quickly as he grabbed him. He moves back to his desk and lights a cigar viciously. He uses it to gesture at Veld.

"Any more mistakes and you'll find yourself out of a job, Dragoon. Permanently."

Veld nods once and salutes. Automatically, I turn to face the President and do the same. We both turn to leave but then the President calls out again.

"And Dragoon! Keep hold of that lapdog of yours. Next time he moves without my permission, I'll have him shot."

Veld stops in his tracks and waits a moment before turning to face the President one last time. The mask is still there but I can see violence creeping at the edge of it. People die when Veld looks like that. His voice is longer in coming than it normally is and his inflection is off.

"… Yes sir. It won't happen again."

The President nods sharply. I'm almost immune to the vertigo of his city backdrop now.

"Good," he says.

He doesn't stop us when we turn to leave again.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

During the elevator ride, neither of us speaks. I watch Veld from the corner of my eye but he doesn't turn to speak to me. I can see his right hand clench and unclench. The motion is so slow and irregular that you wouldn't be able to notice the pattern if you weren't looking specifically for it. Clench, and unclench. Clench …

When the doors open to our main floor, I step off the elevator and turn to wait for him. Veld, however, lets the doors close in front of him, still without ever looking at me.

I frown, a sick feeling in the base of my stomach. I look up and watch the numbers. They stop at the parking level.

I swallow the bitter taste I suddenly feel in my mouth and lurch away from the elevator, heading towards our lounge. The entire floor's dark, Mikel and Lynne long gone for the night. After a moment's hesitation, I walk over to the kitchenette unit. I rifle in the overhead cupboards in the dark, the only light in the room coming from the city lights that leak through the room's window. The mako in my eyes compensates for the lack of lighting, tingeing everything in unnatural hues.

I couldn't stand to look at anything in the dark for weeks after my trip to the labs. None of the others commented about it. I wonder if it's a common occurrence

Mikel has a bottle of scotch hidden in the third cupboard and Lynne keeps her whiskey in the back. If Veld has liquor on the floor then it's probably in his office because I've never seen it. Like so many other aspects of the man's life, he keeps it hidden.

I don't quite sigh when my hand circles around the neck of the bottle that I've sequestered away in the fourth cupboard. It's all just pretence, I realize. We know that we all have the same weaknesses. Sometimes we're deliberate in them and pull out our bottles together.

But pretence is pretence and perhaps the semblance of stability is necessary in all parts of life.

I unscrew the cap with a fluid motion and take a long swing, rubbing the back of my mouth with my sleeve. Without hesitation I take a second and a third. I cough on the fourth and need to catch myself on the counter, the room swimming suddenly.

I walk over to the chair closest to me and sit down in it heavily. If I were honest, perhaps I would admit that there's a girl's voice in the back of my head that I need to drown away.

Stories and stories below me, motorists drive on oblivious. Somewhere out there there's a man who isn't me, finishing a task that could've easily been mine.

If I run out of vodka, I think that I'll start on Lynne's whiskey. I can always buy her a new bottle.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o._

It's close to four in the morning when Veld finally walks back onto the floor. I stand automatically. My eyes may be dry and scratchy but I haven't slept a moment.

It's difficult to sleep on nights like this but that's to be expected.

Veld pauses at the entrance of the lounge for a moment, his profile the only thing facing me. Then, he turns and walks inside. Without speaking to me, he sits in the chair opposite of me and I sit down with him.

Perhaps I understand what he's asking. I pass him the half-empty bottle of vodka and he acknowledges me without looking directly at me.

He takes three shots without hesitation. On the fourth, he coughs and hands the bottle back to me.

"…Thanks."

There's silence for a moment and I can almost imagine that I hear the constant distant murmur of traffic below us. There's only the silence, of course.

"Did you kill them?" I ask because I want to know. I'd heard Veld when he spoke to that girl. I don't want to believe that he's two different people.

Veld shakes his head slowly. He hesitates a moment before holding up a hand to me. I hand him the bottle again without taking my eyes from his face. He ignores me and takes a long swing. When he's done he rests his hands on his knees, still holding the bottle.

He looks out the window when he speaks.

"I was never going to. Urquhart knew what was coming. He opened the damn door for me. The man thought I was going to shoot him with his wife standing right there. Gods above me."

He pauses a moment and takes another swing.

"I got them fake documentation. Chocobo riders will get them out of the city. If they make it all the way, they'll set sail to Wutai from Junon. Urquhart's a broken man. He won't make any trouble for Shinra there."

"If they're caught, you'll be killed," I say, my voice toneless in the night. Veld's smile is vicious as he looks out at the city.

"They won't be. Urquhart's smart and a good man. Besides, better a life in exile then a bullet between the eyes."

I hold out my hand for the bottle and Veld passes it to me without looking away from the window. I think for a moment.

"… If you've miscalculated and Urquhart decides to give into bitterness and go over to the Wutaians, we could all die."

Finally Veld turns to face me, his eyes vicious.

"Then you can kill him, Valentine. I've had enough for one day."

He gets up in a rush and turns.

"Veld!" I say his name with more forcefulness than I intend. I get to my feet and meet his eyes. I don't want him to misunderstand me. Not tonight.

"I'm glad that you didn't kill them," I say carefully and deliberately. The words echo strangely in the empty room but I know that he can hear them just fine. He looks at me a moment longer before nodding and turning to leave the room.

"Thank me in four months if we're still alive. By then, we should know."

"Veld," I say again. Yes, I know that I'm pushing our boundary. I don't know why I'm speaking. I don't know why I'm waiting for him to talk. It doesn't matter; the girl lived. As much as we pretend otherwise, we occasionally like to appease our consciences.

The line isn't always so easy to draw between different kinds of animal. The taxonomy is difficult.

He turns and smirks like it's a secret. Perhaps it is and we're all intrinsically involved. The problem with secrets is that they're always spoken out loud eventually. The worse ones leave dead cities in their wake.

After a moment, I grin back.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

We never did hear from Urquhart or his family again. Of course, all that meant was that he hadn't been intercepted by SOLDIERs or Shinra personnel as they fled the continent. For all we know, they could've died on the rocks of the island.

But that wouldn't have been our responsibility.

In truth, there is a grave in the Slums that I only ever visited once. I imagine that it's been disturbed since then. Those places shed their skins like animals. Some scavenger has likely robbed the girl's bones by now.

Still… if I have come to understand anything in this life it's that people do terrible things to each other. I cannot help but feel grateful that I don't have two gravesites to stand over.

* * *


	11. Sans: Infamie

**Author's Notes**: I actually wrote this chapter a good while back but forgot about it. I'm a little bit nervous about it, to be honest. I hope that it turned out alright.

I borrow a certain number of Veld's character traits from my friend Verdot. That bit with the shaking hands is hers. She's brilliant, essentially. (Go read her stories now.)

I think that what I love most about this story is that if you squint you can actually see OGC Vincent pretty clearly in it (at least, how I've always thought of OGC Vincent). It makes it all a lot of fun to write.

Enjoy.

* * *

Sans: Infamie

Five months came and passed in a blissful silence. Oh, there was fire and bombs and explosions but for everything else I felt as if I had faded into a muffled quiet. I'd been permitted to fall into a dull grey world where my purpose mattered very little at all. I was allowed to live out my poorly chosen life as I saw fit and I felt that whatever choices I made mattered very little to anyone except a small number of individuals.

Turks don't use such designations but I suppose that by the end of the second month Veld and I could've been legitimately considered partners. In some ways it was only natural. There were only four of us and when you only have four integers and do not allow repetitions - 11, 22 - there are a maximum of six possible combinations. Lynne and Mika worked well together. Veld and I learnt to work together by default.

Still, I can't help but wonder if I am being blind in my justification of it. Had Veld and I learnt to work well together? I think back to our first mission together – the missing girl, the dead man in the Slums … had we _learnt_ that?

Maybe it was instinct. All I know is that when I walked through the halls of that building I didn't have to watch my back or my right side. It's easier to avoid getting shot when you have someone more than yourself trying to protect your life.

Months from now perhaps something will change. My life is only partially my own. Other people – other things – own it more completely than I do. We have a certain amount of autonomy from Shinra. We cannot choose the missions but we choose how we react to them. Mika could have died a month or so ago but we staved that death off, the way we will have to do so again and again and again. If we did not appreciate these lives then we would not try to save them, would we?

Perhaps Moment would laugh at what she would call my human fallibilities but I do not believe that an attachment to life – no matter how poor and flawed a life it may be – is a flaw. We have been given these lives by something exterior to ourselves and so we have to continue on with them until it is no longer possible for us to do so. Had I never left the ill-conceived hermitage that I'd undertaken, I never would've had a chance to glimpse these things. I feel an odd sense of gratitude for that. To him – though he would fight viciously against the idea.

Perhaps… yes, perhaps I can say that they are my moments of normalcy; my moments of calm, blessed sanity. I cannot help but feel grateful to them.

This life that I live is a pale, shallow thing but I cannot help but feel a sense of attachment to it. I know that I would rail at whatever would try to take them from me, these people – these friends of mine.

There is a violence in me that shudders at the thought. It will rip out the throat of anyone who tries.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

"Yo, kid."

I look up from my paperwork and a small smile touches my mouth when I see Lynne standing in front of me. As strange as it sounds, it seems like all the others have adopted a piece of Veld's speech patterns. Half a year isn't long enough to wash the 'rookie' and 'kid' comments out of Lynne's vocabulary.

I don't speak but she's used to that.

"We're taking the Chief out tonight. You're coming along."

My smile turns into a smirk.

"Yes ma'am."

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

These aren't the kind of people that you can understand at first glance. Mika's never been particularly good at holding his liquor. Lynne can laugh until she's red in the face and it's enough to get even Veld smiling with more than half of his mouth. It's a strange kind of working relationship. Mika does most of the talking and Lynne normally admonishes him for it. I occaisionally throw in a comment and Veld just normally stays back, taking in the scene.

Of course, at some point Mike and Lynne both come up with similar excuses. Judging by the way that he's looking at her, I can't help but wonder if Veld has noticed it too. If he has, he doesn't comment about it. They make an odd couple, Mika with his inhibitions and Lynne with her lack thereof. A part of me is very deeply pleased for them.

Unfortunately, their departure has the result that you'd expect. Veld has a habit from moving from quiet to withdrawn abnormally quickly. Given the man, it's normally couched in a quiet distain for the circumstances. Still, I am nothing if not stubborn and so I sit there drinking my whiskey in silence.

He speaks eventually.

"You know, she's been looking at you since you came in here." Veld nods over towards a woman sitting a few tables away from our spot at the bar. She's wearing red, I see – a red top that's ridiculously low-cut even for this bar scene. Her makeup looks cheap in the harsh light.

"Has she?" I ask, even as she notices me noticing her.

Veld nods and takes a long drink from his glass without looking at me.

"Yup," he says simply. I watch him for a while but he continues to essentially ignore my presence. After a moment I down my drink in one harsh go.

"Excuse me," I say.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

The woman has a scar all across her stomach that reeks of back alley abortions. She uses her nails against my skin and I grunt as she leaves scratches across me.

When she tries to put the condom on using her mouth, I can't help but pull her off of me to do it myself.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

"That was fun, hun," she tells me afterwards, her slum accent thick on her tongue. She gets dressed with a lazy efficiency that I don't quite watch. When she's done, she waltzes over to my bedside table and scribbles her name down in red ink.

"Call me if you wanna do it again sometime."

There's a headache starting at the edge of my temples but I nod in any case. She leaves me eventually and I hear the door of my apartment click shut.

I get out of bed and pull on my boxers and dress pants again. After a moment's thought, I light a cigarette, the plume of smoke almost blue in the dark. It isn't good enough though – my mouth is still dry with the taste of ashes.

I head to the en-suite bathroom hoping to wash the smell of her off of me.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

I don't realize that I've left the apartment until I'm walking on the pavement outside. The streetlights are obtrusive but the streets themselves are oddly empty. I walk with my hands in my pockets not quite sure where I'm going until I end up in the part of the city that I'd left earlier. My feet take me to the place where I apparently want to go.

The bar's lights are jarring and kitsch. I leave on my third drink because there is a dangerous thing inside of me that's threatening to do something I know I'll regret.

I hit the streets again but the cool Midgar air doesn't offer any relief. I feel as though I could walk for hours.

For whatever reason, I'm not entirely surprised when I arrive in the district that I'd least expect, the building in question dark against the blue-black sky.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

"You're drunk," he says with a dark glint in his eye. It's not quite true; not in the way that he's accusing me. I'm not so drunk that I'm impeded and I still have my sense of clarity.

Though that shuffling thing is growing stronger in me. I'm so _angry_.

I hide it in my throat.

"May I come in?" I ask, the words only partially distorted through that thing in the back of my mouth. I don't know why I'm bothering to ask. I won't leave if he tells me to.

He doesn't even nod; he just steps back from his door, leaving it wide.

I've been to Veld's apartment before. Before or after missions, sometimes it was necessary to stop here. That was different. This is something else entirely.

Because it is three in the morning and there are no lights on in here. I cannot help but wonder what Veld was doing sitting in the dark when he was so clearly sipping bourbon. As I take off my shoes, he disappears into the kitchen and I hear the unmistakable sound of ice falling into a glass cup and liquor being poured.

Shoes off, I stand a few feet away from the doorway, my mako-tinted eyes taking in the scene. Veld's apartment is much like mine; open-concept, to my left is a living area that leads to a balcony. To my right there is a short hall that leads to the bedroom and the bathroom. Directly ahead is the path to the kitchen. There is a wall partition that hides half of the kitchen but that is the only separation in the otherwise open space.

"You might as well come in," he says, hidden by the wall of the kitchen. I don't hesitate before walking in. In truth, I don't know why I'm bothering with the formalities of an invitation.

He's leaning against his kitchen counter, half of the bourbon in his glass already gone. I pick up the glass he's left for me and take a deep drink.

"Girl wasn't to your liking?" he asks, a hint of veiled amusement in his eyes. He's mocking me but that's not exactly what he's saying.

Is that just a barest hint of … is Veld insulting himself?

It's the tone that wakes up that anger in me again. It sits between us like some kind of second presence and the hand he has against his kitchen counter twitches for the briefest of moments.

I'm starting to understand that Veld can't always keep things hidden under his skin. He's hard to read but he's not _impossible_ to read. His hands sometimes shake because …

I have never told this story to any of the others because I knew the moment it happened that it was not something I was meant to see. Some three months ago, we were on another mission together – there have been close to a hundred by now; Turks certainly earn their keep in the department.

Three months ago, I failed in protecting my left side. I was grazed and Veld flipped me around so that he was facing the opponent to my left.

That was the natural thing to do. We are all trained to fight in unity.

What Veld did though… it defied sense. He was armed but he didn't shoot the man. Instead he flicked his wrist and a knife materialized in his left hand.

Most people will never see a man die from a slit throat. The blood doesn't spurt but instead runs down the neck like a thick, red curtain. The man scrambled at his throat, his eyes wide. With so much blood falling, you find it hard to understand how a small trickle can still escape his mouth – and how you can manage to notice such a thing as you watch him die.

There were three others and they were just as quickly dispensed – hand to hand, nothing so civilized as a shot to the head.

At the end of it, Veld didn't look at me right away. I think that he would've ignored Lynne and Mika entirely. He dug his right hand into his pant pocket and I saw a brief view of something white – a tissue or a handkerchief, maybe - before he raised his hands in front of himself, obscuring my view. I assumed that he wiped off the blade of his knife before making it disappear into his sleeve again.

I only noticed it when he tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. I was almost too distracted by the red on the white but I saw it. Veld's right hand was shaking uncontrollably. He balled his fist and stuck it into his pant pocket as well. He made the barest glance in my direction and said that we should go and so we did.

Mika and Lynne wouldn't have been able to hear it, that faint tremble that followed us for hours afterwards. They might've assumed that he ignored them out of some kind of shame for his lose of control and perhaps there was a kind of shame following us that night. People like to pretend that we are, at the very least, a different sort of animal. Something civilized.

But that wasn't it entirely. He ignored me because that tremble was still there and _I was still alive_.

Personification is the only way I can explain these things to people who aren't acquainted with them. There was a violence – a living, breathing, hating violence in him. It hadn't run its course yet and _I was still alive_.

He ignored me to stave off my death. Physically, we are evenly matched but Veld's rage is older than mine. It alone could probably kill me.

That is why when I see his hand twitch against his countertop when we're alone in his apartment together, something breaks off inside of me. There is something broken inside both of us. I mean that in the most proper sense of the word. Something was shattered in our conception so that we are…

That distant look, that haughty stare – the audacity to think that I don't see it.

He is foolish and a fool, Veld. I can see right through it. He's lying with every ounce of himself and he's likely been lying for years. It's no wonder that he hated me when we first met. If I were him I too would likely hate something that offered a clarity of perception.

It's written all over his blood. I can see it in his face.

For the audacity, for the vanity, for the pride – I hit him. I hit him hard enough that he stumbles back from the counter and catches himself against the refrigerator door. His left hand wipes the side of his mouth and there's a smear of blood just above his thumb.

When he looks up again I see something dark and violent starring out at me from behind his eyes.

I smile.

I will teach him that he cannot break me. When he has learnt that, perhaps we can live in honesty again.

_.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o._

We fall asleep afterwards, curled up around our collective injuries. I lie there half-awake. The others shuffle about speaking quietly amongst themselves. I mostly ignore them, content to focus on the dull ache that consumes me.

I'm half-asleep when I hear her quiet chuckle.

_There, that wasn't so difficult, was it?_ she asks.

I don't open my eyes because I know that I'm not going to be able to see her.

"Does it matter to you?" I ask, my voice barely dusting the air around me.

_Your purpose is small, Vincent Valentine. I care very little about what you do with your life._

"I'm glad to hear that," I reply.

When she's gone again, I fall back asleep.

* * *


End file.
